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The Prion star system contains two habitable planets which have supported civilisations: Zolfa-Thura, a desert world devoid seemingly of life structures bar five giant screens; and Tigella, a jungle world inhabited by the humanoid, white haired Tigellans. The structure of Tigellan society is based on two castes: the scientific Savants, led by the earnest Deedrix; and the religiously fanatical Deons, led by Lexa. The latter worship the Dodecahedron, a mysterious twelve-sided crystal which they see as a gift from the god Ti. The Savants, however, have utilised its power as an energy source for their entire civilisation. The planet’s leader, Zastor, mediates between the two factions, whose tensions have grown greater as the energy source has begun to fluctuate. When Zastor’s old friend the Fourth Doctor gets in touch, the weary leader invites him back to Tigella to investigate and help. When the Doctor, Romana and K-9 try to land the TARDIS on Tigella someone intervenes, trapping them in a time bubble known as a chronic hysteresis, causing them to repeat their words and actions over and over again.

The culprit is Meglos, the last Zolfa-Thuran, a cactus creature who has remained hidden below the surface of his planet in a secret structure. He has summoned a band of ramshackle space pirates called Gaztaks to help him in an audacious plan, and their leaders Grugger and Brotodac are greedy enough to try. Meglos wants to steal the Dodecahedron back from Tigella, as it is a Zolfa-Thuran energy source of immense power. To aid him, Meglos uses an Earthling captured for him by the Gaztaks to occupy and take on humanoid form: and the humanoid form he chooses is the Doctor, whom he has trapped in the bubble. While the hysteresis persists Meglos gets the Gaztaks to take him to Tigella, and infiltrates the city in his new identity. Zastor greets “the Doctor” warmly as an old friend, asking him to examine the Dodecahedron, but others are less sure, especially Lexa.

The Doctor and Romana break out of the bubble by throwing it out of phase, and then land the TARDIS on Tigella – but in the middle of the hostile jungle rather than near the city. As the Doctor heads off to find Zastor, Romana stumbles across the dangerous vegetation – deadly bell plants – and then the Gaztaks, waiting patiently for Meglos to return to their spaceship. She gives them the slip after a while and heads off to the city herself.

Meglos has used his time as the Doctor to access and steal the Dodecahedron, shrinking it to minute size. Not all goes smoothly, however, as the Earthling fights back against his occupation, causing green cactus spikes to break out on his skin. When the Tigellans sound the alarm Meglos hides away but the real Doctor arrives at the same time and is accused of theft. His bewilderment and charm are little defence as both Savants and Deons start to panic as the energy levels of the city start to fail. Lexa uses the situation to her own ends. Zastor and Deedrix are arrested in a Deon coup, with other Savants expelled to the hostile surface of the planet, while the Doctor himself is prepared for sacrifice to Ti.

The doors of the city are sealed, with Meglos still trapped inside, with a hostage Savant named Caris for company. She soon gets the upper hand when the Earthling tries another bout of resistance. In a subsequent mix up Romana overpowers Caris, letting Meglos escape and reunite with the Gaztaks, who have staged an attack on the city to rescue him. The Dodecahedron is in his possession and the pirates soon blast off back to Zolfa-Thura – though three Gaztaks, half the crew, have been lost.

The real Doctor has by now been able to prove to the Tigellans he did not steal the artefact and there is a doppelgänger at work. Lexa realises her mistake but does not live long to regret it when she is shot dead by a wounded Gaztak who was left behind. The Doctor, Romana, Caris and Deedrix head with K9 for the TARDIS, determined to follow the Gaztak ship.

Grugger’s ship touches down on Zolfa-Thura and Meglos wastes no time in restoring the Dodecahedron to full size and placing it at a spot equidistant between the Screens. He reveals his race perished in a civil war over the control of the crystal, which can power a weapon strong enough to destroy planets. At Grugger’s urging Meglos decides to use the weapon again and to aim it at Tigella.

When the Doctor arrives he plays Meglos at his own game and tries a little impersonation. The situation becomes so confused the Gaztaks lose track of which one is which, enabling the Doctor to change the settings of the super-weapon. Meglos abandons the Earthling, leaving a bemused man watching a cactus creature reassert himself in his laboratory. Meglos knows the Doctor has realigned the weapon. The creature is unable to stop the Doctor fleeing back to the TARDIS, taking the Earthling with him, and is also unable to persuade Grugger not to fire the weapon. From the TARDIS the Doctor and his friends witness the destruction of Zolfa-Thura, the Gaztaks, Meglos and the Dodecahedron.

Caris and Deedrix return to rebuild Tigella, recognising with Zastor and the Deons that old enmities must be put aside and a new society forged. The Doctor and Romana depart and prepare to take the Earthling home, but as they are leaving Romana receives a message from the Time Lords that she must return to Gallifrey…

1934: the TARDIS lands on a snowy island off the coast of Alaska – one that wasn’t there four years, three months and six days ago, according to the Doctor. The island is dominated by a vast, twisted citadel. Inside it, the Lurkers lie dreaming. It's said when they wake the world will end…

Led by the ruthless Emerson Whytecrag, an expedition has come to the citadel, to exploit the horrors in its ebon-dark interior. Horrors just like those published in the pages of the pulp magazine Shuddersome Tales, where a hero's only reward is madness, death… or worse.

Sarah Jane faces her saddest day, as she realises that no one can defend the Earth forever. She’s saved the world so many times, but must now hand over the task to safer hands. Clyde and Rani are distraught, and the forces of darkness gather as the inevitable day approaches.

Sarah Jane has gone – but a new regime begins at Bannerman Road! Clyde and Rani must face the fact that nothing lasts forever – but can they still unite as a team, to face a new and deadly threat from outer space? Or is the old gang finished for good?

A meteor hurtles towards Earth. Mr Smith redirects it to safer co-ordinates, and says it will contain germ pathogens. The gang hurry to neutralise it and stop the germs escaping. The meteorite reads all clear, then a strange woman appears, claiming to be saving the world. She drives off in a red sports car, and Clyde points out that she is doing the same thing as Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane does not look pleased.

They find the woman has just moved in across the street and go to find out who she is. She behaves coldly towards them, telling them to get out of her house. Her name is Ruby White, and she sees them as amateurs. She moved to Ealing because of all the alien activity- Trueman, the bubbleshock factory, rhinos in police cars and alien plant life. Sarah Jane decides to stay away from Ruby, but keep her eyes open.

The next day, Gita waves to Sarah Jane on her way home. Sarah Jane says she has to make Lukes tea, and then realises he is at university. Clyde and Rani go to check that she is alright. She calls Luke, just two hours after she last spoke to him, and can't remember K9's name. Rani suggests she take a holiday and visit Luke, when Mr Smith gives a red alert. A fleet of Dark Horde warriors are heading for Earth. They trace the scan beam and lock on to the attic to neutralise enemy technology. Mr Smith diverts the teleport to an uninhabited area. Sarah Jane starts acting out of character, giving Clyde a gun and saying they must protect the Earth by any means.

An advance party of three warriors lands on Earth. Sarah Jane plans to use a device to overload their sensors. She asks Clyde for the sonic lipstick, but he said she told him to bring the gun (which isn't even charged). Sarah Jane has made a big mistake. Then Ruby arrives and tosses spheres to both Rani and Clyde. She uses an artificial intelligence to project the Dark Horde with a stronger version of themselves; their logical reaction was to flee. Clyde suggests calling the AI 'Mr White'.

They take Ruby back to the attic, where Mr White gets along well with Mr Smith. Sarah Jane says she'd be glad to have an adult friend. Whilst explaining to Ruby how she became involved with aliens, Sarah Jane forgets the Doctor's name for a moment, something she can't believe she did. She orders Mr Smith to medi-scan her; he tells her there is evidence of brain tissue deterioration. Sarah Jane takes this to mean she is now too old to continue defending the Earth. Ruby makes friends with Clyde and Rani, who are eager to show off their knowledge of aliens, and Sarah Jane feels very left out.

Sarah Jane asks Ruby to take over the duty of protecting the Earth, offering her the house, Mr Smith and Clyde and Rani. Ruby agrees. Sarah Jane goes to leave, not even bothering to tell Luke she is going, and orders Mr Smith to wipe her voice from the command program so she can no longer order him. She realises something is wrong and begs Ruby to help her. Instead, Ruby teleports her to a 'secret cellar' which houses her stomach. She reveals that she is the one making Sarah Jane ill, draining her life force. She is a Katesh, whose race devours peoples thrills and emotions. She targeted Sarah Jane as she has the most exciting life on Earth. Mr White is making a farewell message for Clyde and Rani so they will believe Sarah Jane has gone because 'she' will tell them. Ruby's stomach drains Sarah Jane directly, as Ruby gloats about how she will feast on the Earth...

Ruby explains that rather than stop aliens, she will help them, and feed on the excitement and terror that humanity will feel. Back in the attic, Clyde and Rani watch Mr Whites faked video. Clyde can't believe she has just gone, and blames Rani for putting the idea of a 'holiday' in her head. Mr Smith starts acting strangely, trying to give Clyde a warning- 'Beware Ruby'. Ruby shuts down Mr Smith and teleports Clyde to her spaceship. It was once her prison, until she reprogrammed it's game console (Mr White). Ruby leaves Clyde in the prison to suffocate.

Rani tries to call Clyde, and then hears a knock at the door. She opens it to find Luke. K9, who is back in Oxford, tracks Clydes phone to space. Rani goes to place the phone near Mr White so K9 can reset him and free Mr Smith from his influence, as well as rescue Clyde. Clyde leaves a message on his phone for the others to find and collapses. Rani distracts Ruby, who isn't convinced, but luckily K9 manages to reset Mr White in time. Clyde and Rani go to rescue Sarah Jane. Ruby corners them in the cellar and threatens to devour them completely.

Luke arrives and gives Ruby a warning to leave Earth. When she refuses, Mr White sends a hologram, so everyone on Earth sees a meteor hurtling straight for them. Ruby cannot handle the sudden inrush of emotions and thrills from 6 billion people. The stomach swells, then shrinks and releases all the energy it took from Sarah Jane back into her. Sarah Jane sends Ruby back to her prison ship, but Ruby swears to get revenge on her. Luke takes them all out for a treat, and Sarah Jane says that although the universe is full of amazing things, they have stiff competition on Earth.

Ruby refers to Sarah Jane's area as "The Ealing Triangle", a play on the Bermuda Triangle, an area in the North Atlantic Ocean, where a number of planes and sea vessels have mysteriously vanished over the years.

Across the planet, the silver legions stand impassive in every city; mankind has sacrificed its freedoms for the sake of a distant conflict against its android creations, and now the price must be paid. On the streets, in the depths of space, a web of lies and deceit draws ever tighter, and the lines between human and android, between enemy and ally, are blurred. Only one choice remains – resist or surrender…

AUTHOR:

James Swallow

DIRECTOR:

Nicholas Briggs

SOUND DESIGN:

Kelly Ellis & Steve McNichol from Fool Circle Productions

MUSIC:

Kelly Ellis & Steve McNichol from Fool Circle Productions

COVER ART:

Alex Mallinson

NUMBER OF DISCS:

5

RECORDED DATE:

22, 23, 24, 26, 27 February 2009

RELEASE DATE:

30 December 2009

PRODUCTION CODE:

BFPCYBESCD05

ISBN:

978-1-84435-332-3

CHRONOLOGICAL PLACEMENT:

This story is set after the events of Cyberman, the first series.

NOTE:CDs only available as a boxed set. Box cover enhanced with silver foil. CD 5 is a behind-the-scenes

Plot

Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde are lured by an article to a shop where an alien has been sighted. When they arrive, they are met by the mysterious shopkeeper and his parrot. The Shopkeeper needs their help to save the Earth. They need to find three pieces made of chronosteen, a metal forged in the Time Vortex which can reshape destiny, before it is too late. They can be found at key points of the Earth's history. The Shopkeeper is able to open a time window, into which Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde are forced. They are transported in time to three different eras, and each must face danger alone.

Rani ends up in the Tower of London on 19 July 1553, to be a lady-in-waiting to Lady Jane Grey, who is about to be usurped by Mary I. It is the final day of her reign. Rani and Lady Jane easily become friends. Mary's army have reached London. Rani discovers a plot to kill Lady Jane that very night.

Clyde ends up in an English coastal village in 1941 during World War II. He meets George, an adolescent evacuee, who has spotted three Wehrmacht soldiers on the beach. They are now the only people who can save Britain from an invasion. They hide in the church, but are found. The Germans have a hammer - Thor's Hammer. With this they can block radar systems and start the invasion of Britain.

Sarah Jane ends up in a house haunted by ghosts in 1889. She meets the girl Emily Morris, who is looking for the ghosts. At eight o'clock the "haunting" begins. They hear a woman talk and children playing with fire. The "ghosts" are not from the past, but the future, where a fire will start and kill the children. Sarah Jane and Emily must find a way to stop this from happening.

Rani stops Lady Mathilda from killing her with the dagger of Chronosteen. Mathilda wanted to make Lady Jane a martyr to inspire the Protestants to rise up against Mary. Rani stays with Jane until the latter is taken to the keep. She promises Lady Jane that she will not be forgotten by history or by her. Taking the dagger, Rani disappears through the time window. Jane believes that Rani is an angel and, reasoning that angels speak only the truth, goes to her death confident that she will be remembered.

Clyde distracts the Wehrmacht with his mobile phone, claiming it to be a sophisticated bomb; George is able to use that moment to snatch Thor's Hammer. The pair lock themselves in a chamber below the bell tower, and repeatedly chime the bell to alert the townsfolk and Home Guard of the emergency. The Germans dash back to the beach but are captured by the Home Guard. George asserts his duty and desire to join the military as soon as he is of age, dismissing Clyde's request that he wait until 1945; Clyde implores him to be careful before disappearing into the time window. George arives on the beach and poses armed for a photograph with the German troops whose capture he and Clyde had facilitated. George survives combat and goes on to contribute significantly to the post-war development of radar, for which he is honoured late in life by the Queen.

Sarah Jane resets the clock to eight o'clock and the "haunting" continues. This time they see the future nanny talking on a mobile telephone. The children are locked in a room playing with a candle. Emily manage to call out to the children and they hear her. It is her fear when she lost her mother that connects her with them. Emily uses this ability to turn the key in the lock and the children escape. Sarah Jane, now holding the key, starts disappearing through the time window, but Emily takes the key and won't let go. When Sarah Jane returns the time window has become critical and without the key, the world will be sucked into the time vortex. At this moment a woman appears at their side with the key. The time window closes. The Shopkeeper, without explanation of the whole thing, bids them farewell and disappears with his parrot called Captain.

The woman is Angela Price, a granddaughter of Emily. She has been told to come to the shop shown in the article on this exact day and give the key back. While walking out of the shop, Clyde compliments Rani's makeover into Tudor dress.

Part 1

A teenage girl enters an asylum, and approaches The Vault of Secrets. She tries to access it, but only has one disc. She is then confronted by The Alliance of Shades, so she escapes, injures herself and falls over. Androvax exits her body, and escapes. The Alliance of Shades (a.k.a Men In Black) arrive at the scene, and scan the unconscious girl. The Veil is declared no longer in her.

Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani are in the attic, speaking to Luke on webcam, and Mr Smith interferes with a NASA space probe on Mars, to prevent it discovering an ancient and deadly civilisation.

Gita and her husband Haresh have joined B.U.R.P.S.S. (The British UFO Research and Paranormal Studies Society) due to Gita's encounter with the Judoon and Androvax in the past. When the couple arrive home on Bannerman Road, Gita spots Androvax entering Sarah Jane's front garden.

Haresh arms himself and goes to investigate, and encounters Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde. Haresh leaves after a conversation with them, and Androvax enters Rani's body. Sarah Jane scans for alien activity, and realises Rani has been taken over. Sarah Jane and Clyde chase her/him to the attic, and order Mr Smith to contain him after exiting Rani's body.

They discover that Androvax is dying, having escaped a prison in a swamp and been poisoned by an alien viper. He intends to free 100 of his people from cryogenic sleep in The Vault of Secrets - the last survivors of the Veil species, aside from Androvax himself.

Ocean Waters, the founder of B.U.R.P.S.S., arrives with Minty to scan for alien activity by picking up Beta particles. Sarah Jane uses her Sonic lipstick to deactivate this device.

The three of them go to investigate at a mental asylum, where they encounter the base of the Men In Black. They are detected, and the Men In Black go to confront them. They discover that Ocean Waters was abducted in 1972 and encountered the Men In Black. The Men In Black then arrive to confront them, and activate their robotic hands. They tell Sarah Jane she must hand over Androvax and their disc, or prepare to be incinerated.

The gang arrive home, where they agree with Androvax to let him use Clyde's body. They then speak to Ocean and Minty. Ocean turns out to have the other disc required to enter the Vault, and she recalls past encounters with the Men In Black and Mister Dread. Then the Men In Black arrive and tell them they must prepare to be incinerated.

The incineration is averted, Androvax escapes and enters Gita's body. Gita leaves for the Vault, and is followed by Mister Dread, Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde. Sarah Jane causes Mister Dread's car to malfunction, so he acquires a new one.

They all arrive at the asylum, where Rani and Clyde rescue Gita. Androvax then leaves and encounters Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane refuses to help him because when the Veil are reawakened and leave Earth, the spaceships will cause Earth to explode, ending the human civilisation. Sarah Jane's body is then taken over by Androvax.

Clyde jumps away from an incineration blast from two Men In Black, and the two men destroy each other. Rani explains to her mother about aliens, and how Sarah Jane, she and Clyde have encountered them. Mister Dread is placed into his capsule and made to sleep. Androvax goes to the Vault, in Sarah Jane's body, pretending to be her. He/she opens the Vault, revealing many spaceships, much to Gita's surprise. Androvax then leaves Sarah's body, and locks himself inside the Vault, which uses a Transmat to make it bigger on the inside. The team awaken Mister Dread, who gives up 450 years of his energy to allow Androvax and his race to leave Earth without harming anybody, by being beamed into space.

Mister Dread now lacks power, and declares his mission terminated. He erases the memory of Gita, who intends to tell the world about their experiences, and goes to sleep in his capsule. The team return home, and Ocean and Minty arrive to ask about the Men In Black. Sarah Jane denies everything and Gita says she doesn't believe in aliens. Minty and Ocean say that the aliens have won again and decide to leave. In outer space, Androvax flies away to find a new world, having saved his species.

Sarah Jane, Rani and Clyde are talking to Luke via webcam but are interrupted when Mr Smith alerts them that a UNIT armed forces convoy is converging on the house. The commanding officer, Colonel Karim, informs the group that the Doctor is dead, despite Sarah Jane's protests that it can't be possible. It is claimed that the Doctor died in the Wastelands of the Crimson Heart, where he had saved the lives of 500 children from the Scarlet Monstrosity. A race called the Shansheeth [3] have retrieved the body and are holding a funeral for the Doctor at UNIT Base 5, buried underground at the foot of Mount Snowdon. Sarah Jane still believes that the Doctor must be alive, and so goes along to search for evidence that it is a hoax.

Upon arrival at the base they find that a small number of other mourners have been invited, as few survive their encounters with the Doctor. Many also couldn't make it including the Brigadier, who is stranded in Peru. The team also find, to their surprise a Groske working in the base, a blue skinned cousin of the Graske race they have had problems with in the past. The Doctor's body is to be blasted into space via a huge rocket, built by the Groske. They proceed to the ceremony of remembrance, however Clyde's left hand develops a growing blue electric charge, which he is unnerved at. At the ceremony, music is played which recalls memories for all about the Doctor; for Sarah Jane it is memories of the Third and Fourth Doctors, while for Rani and Clyde it is their encounters with the Doctor at Sarah Jane's wedding. Clyde then realises that the charge is Artron energy, which he had previously carried after touching the vanishing TARDIS at the wedding. The ceremony is interrupted by the clumsy arrival of Jo Jones (née Grant), as she drops a vase of flowers. She is accompanied by her grandson, Santiago. The two former companions chat, as do the children, and both women agree that they are sure that the Doctor must still be alive.

In their dormitory, the two women make a list of enemies that might try to fake the Doctor's death, while the children leave and wander round the base. Outside the room, Clyde again receives a shock on his hand and reveals the affliction to the other two. They encounter the lead Groske again, who informs them that the rising artron energy signals that an unidentified someone is getting closer and closer. Clyde, desperate to find out more pursues the Groske down an air vent, where they watch as the Shansheeth plot to make the two companions relive their days with the Doctor and therefore drain their minds for an unknown purpose, killing them in the process. The Shansheeth play music down the ventilation shafts to the former companions, where they start to recollect their adventures with the Doctor. The children are discovered by the Shansheeth when another artron energy discharge gives away their position.

The children flee and run into Sarah Jane and Jo who sense they are in trouble. After recollecting what the Shansheeth are doing, they are surprised to hear an adult male talking through Clyde's mouth. However, the next minute Clyde appears normal. He then gains the Doctor's hand before seemingly morphing into the Doctor. The Doctor, now in the UNIT base, explains that he used Clyde's residual Artron Energy to make a complicated swap of 10,000 light years. The result of this is, as the Doctor realises, is that he can fight the Shansheeth while Clyde however is where the Doctor just was: trapped in danger on an alien world. Sarah Jane realises that the man standing before them is the Doctor's newest incarnation shortly before the Shansheeth catch up with the group where the Doctor confronts them. A Shansheeth quips that they will ensure their announcement of the Doctor's death is correct this time, they then proceed to launch a beam of energy from their claws at him, causing him to yelp in pain and collapse to the floor.

The Doctor disappears and Clyde reappears—they have swapped places again. Clyde, Jo, Rani, Santiago and Sarah Jane run away from the Shansheeth to safety, the Doctor swapping places again with Clyde part way. The Doctor, Jo and Sarah swap places with Clyde and go to the alien planet, where they talk. The Doctor says that he visited Jo before he regenerated and told Jo that he had been into her future and seen her thirteenth grandchild. The Doctor works on perfecting the machine which allowed them to swap places with Clyde. When fixed, it can transport them without needing to swap with Clyde. Clyde and Rani talk with Santiago, who reveals he hasn't spoken to his parents in six months. Colonel Karim meanwhile is with the Shansheeth, and they are plotting to use Jo and Sarah Jane's memories of the TARDIS to create a new TARDIS Key, so the Shansheeth can stop death across the universe by interfering with the timelines and so that Colonel Karim, in return, shall visit the stars because she has nothing left for her on Earth.

Rani, Santiago, Clyde and a Groske try to get through the ventilation shafts, but Colonel Karim heats the shafts up, until the children are in danger of roasting. The Doctor, Jo and Sarah Jane go to the rescue, but Jo and Sarah Jane are kidnapped and the Doctor must go on alone. Sarah Jane and Jo are strapped up and the Memory Weave is used on them. Their minds are scanned and they begin remembering the TARDIS, these memories generate a new TARDIS Key as the Shansheeth and Colonel Karim make their intentions clear.

The Doctor, Rani, Clyde, Santiago and a Groske come to the room Sarah Jane and Jo are in and tell them to remember other experiences. Sarah Jane and Jo both remember past encounters with the Doctor and all the creatures and enemies they met. Jo remembers all the countries she has been to as Sarah Jane remembers her battles with aliens. The memory weave overloads and explodes, the room is on fire. Sarah Jane and Jo hide in the lead coffin and shut themselves inside to survive the explosion. Later, they are taken to Sarah Jane's house, alive and well. Jo and Sarah Jane talk with the Doctor inside the TARDIS; Jo mentions the Time Lords and the Doctor mentions a foreshadowing (that if he ever were to die, the universe would shiver). He then allows them to leave, and demateralises. Jo and Santiago leave for Norway, and the trio are left behind, where Sarah Jane tells them of Tegan Jovanka, Ben Jackson, Polly, Harry Sullivan, Ace, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. They say that with friends like themselves, the Doctor will never die.

Rani and Clyde are the only people left in the world and are trying to find other people. This episode includes red and yellow robots that try to attack Clyde and Rani.

After detecting an alien energy source, Clyde and Rani go to bed while Mr Smith tries to trace it. But in the morning, Rani realises that her parents are missing and so is Sarah Jane and everyone on Bannerman Road.

SYNOPSIS:1999: Leaving her infant son behind, a young mother named Cassandra Schofield departs Bolton, seeking a better life amid the lights of London.

2004: Despite the best efforts of the time-travelling Doctor, 'Cassie' Schofield dies on Dartmoor, a vampirised victim of the sinister organisation called The Forge.

2021: All grown up, and a nurse at St Gart's Hospital, Thomas Hector Schofield – known as 'Hex' – meets, and becomes a companion to, that time-travelling Doctor… but remains unaware that his alien friend knew his mother, and watched her die.

1854: In the Crimean War, Hex takes a bullet, and is seriously injured. The Doctor promises to return him to St Gart's.

SYNOPSIS:"The future folds into the past. The homeless hero has fallen. Now begins the time of three tales: The Tale of the Herald. The Tale of the Hidden Woman. The Tale of the Final Speaker. When the last tale is told, all the lights shall fail. The world will end."

21st century London: Nobody No One, the extra-dimensional Word Lord, is again running amok. Only this time, he's unbeatable – and a terrible tragedy is about to unfold.

Plot

In Antarctica, scientists Charles Winlett and Derek Moberley discover a pod buried in the permafrost, and take it back to their camp. John Stevenson, the base botanist identifies it as vegetable-based and estimates it has been buried in the ice for some twenty thousand years.

Back in London, Richard Dunbar of the World Ecology Bureau shows the Doctor photographs of the pod. Although he feels that the Doctor cannot help them, his superior Sir Colin Thackeray insisted. The Doctor examines the pictures and believes it to be extraterrestrial. He tells Dunbar to contact the expedition by their regular video link, and tell them not to touch it until he arrives.

Back at the base, Stevenson discovers that the pod is growing larger and he believes it is absorbing ultraviolet radiation. In England, Dunbar visits the estate of millionaire Harrison Chase. Chase's estate is filled with thousands of plants, and he considers it his mission to protect the plant life of Mother Earth. Dunbar has come to show him pictures of the pod, its possible extraterrestrial origin and hints that such a valuable specimen could easily disappear.... for a price. Dunbar gives Chase the location of the pod. Chase calls for one of his men, Scorby, telling him to take Keeler along.

At the base, Winlett is half asleep near the pod when it opens up. A frond-like tentacle whips out and stings his arm, causing Winlett to collapse in pain. When Stevenson and Moberley find him, Winlett's face is covered with green hives. The Doctor and Sarah arrive at the base. In the sickbay, Winlett's body temperature and pulse are dropping rapidly. His face and body are now covered with a green fungus, and its growth is accelerating. The Doctor asks for a blood test on Winlett, who is growing increasingly monstrous, and examines the now-empty pod. Stevenson acknowledges that it may be his fault; convinced that the pod was alive, he placed it under a lamp. Outside the base, the Doctor digs at the ice, uncovering another pod. Noting that the pods travel in pairs, the Doctors transfers it to the base freezer. On analysis, Winlett's blood is found to contain no blood platelets, but instead has schizophytes — microscopic organisms akin to plant bacteria.

The sound of engines is heard, and Moberley and Stevenson go meet what they presume is the medical team. The Doctor tells Sarah that Winlett is turning into a Krynoid, a kind of galactic weed that settles on planets and eats the animal life. Stevenson and Moberley escort two men —Scorby and Keeler— into the base. The new arrivals claim that their private plane got lost and wound up at the base. The Doctor leaves to check on Winlett, taking the others and leaving Scorby and Keeler alone.

Moberly is killed by the now muated Winlett. Transformed into a Krynoid it flees the base and shelters in the outside generator hut. Scorby and Keeler -employees of Chase- hold the Doctor and others at gunpoint as they steal the remaining pod. Scorby and Keeler set up a bomb in the generator and escape in their plane. The Doctor and the others get free, but are attacked by the Krynoid, which kills Stevenson. The Doctor and Sarah flee the base as the bomb creates a chain reaction and destroys the whole area.

Regaining consciousness in the snow, the Doctor and Sarah are picked up by a team from South Bend in their Snow Cat vehicle. Meanwhile, Scorby and Keller return to Chase in England with the second pod. Dunbar is angered at how far Chase had gone to secure the pod, but warns Chase that the Doctor and Sarah are still alive, and are scheduled to meet with him and Sir Colin in two hours.

At the meeting, the Doctor and Sarah describe how well planned the theft of the pod was, but the Doctor believes that the two men were stooges. The discovery of the pod had only been reported to the Ecology Bureau, so the leak must have come from them. He tells Dunbar to arrange for him to go to the Botanic Institute. As they leave the building, a driver meets them claiming to be their ride. However, the limousine stops in the countryside, and the driver orders them out at gunpoint. With a bit of teamwork, the Doctor manages to jump the driver and punch him out. The Doctor and Sarah search the car, and find a painting by Amelia Ducat, one of the world's leading flower artists. When they visit her, Ducat tells them that the owner of the painting is Harrison Chase, and that he never paid her for the painting.

Keeler, who is a botanist himself, unsuccessfully tries to convince Chase to stop the experiments on the pod. Chase orders him to inject the pod with fixed nitrogen. Dunbar calls Chase and tells him that his driver is in the hospital, so when the Doctor and Sarah try to sneak into the mansion, they are spotted by some guards and Scorby, who capture them.

The Doctor and Sarah are brought before Chase, and despite having Scorby's gun at his head, the Doctor asks Chase grimly to hand over the pod. Chase politely refuses: He has the greatest collection of plants in the world, and when the pod flowers, it will be his crowning achievement. Before he executes them, Chase decides to show the Doctor and Sarah around the mansion, and his plant laboratory.

Keeler notes that the pod is growing, and tells Hargreaves, the butler, to summon Chase to the annex. There, Chase tells Keeler to inject more nitrogen into the pod. Scorby escorts the Doctor and Sarah into the gardens to kill them, but the two manage to overpower Scorby. The Doctor uses rope to lower Sarah down the wall so she can go and warn Sir Colin while he returns to the house to examine the pod. However, Sarah gets captured again.

The Doctor makes his way back into the mansion while Sarah is escorted by Scorby back to Chase. The Doctor watches through the skylight, horrified as Chase orders Sarah forced down to a chair, grabbing her arm and pinning it next to the pod. He wants to know what happens when the Krynoid touches human flesh. The Doctor rescues Sarah and in the confusion, a frond from the pod stings Keeler's arm. Keeler begs Chase to get him to a hospital, but Chase is more fascinated with the transformative process than saving Keeler's life. Chase and Hargreaves take Keller to the nearby cottage.

When the Doctor returns to the empty laboratory, he is captured by Scorby and a guard, who take him to the compost room. Scorby activates the crusher, remarking that Chase recycles everything. The main gate calls the house: Amelia Ducat is here demanding her money. To avoid a fuss, Chase agrees to see her. Meanwhile, Sarah has entered the cottage, and sees Keeler, who is still lucid, although covered with the Krynoid growth. She escapes back to the house and while in hiding, attracts Ducat's attention and asks her to take a message to Sir Colin. Outside, Ducat enters a car with Sir Colin and Dunbar inside, and tells them what Sarah said. Dunbar, realising he has made a terrible mistake, says he will go in and get the Doctor. He tells Sir Colin that, if he does not return in half an hour, to return to London and call UNIT.

Sarah finds her way into the compost room and turns off the crusher just in time to save the Doctor. Hargreaves finds that Keeler has now almost completed his transformation, and runs in a panic as the creature frees itself. In the mansion, Dunbar pleads with Chase to abandon the experiment as Hargreaves reports Keeler's transformation to Chase. Dunbar says that this has gone far enough, and he is going to get help. Chase tells Scorby to stop him.

Scorby pursues Dunbar through the grounds as the Doctor and Sarah find Keeler missing from the cottage. The Doctor takes a sword from over the fireplace and they leave to search for the Krynoid. Dunbar runs into the monster, which is far larger than the Winlett creature was, and no longer even humanoid. He shoots at it uselessly, and is held fast by the surrounding plant life as the Krynoid kills him. Dunbar's screams attract the attention of Scorby and the guards as well as the Doctor and Sarah. The latter get there first, the Doctor drawing the sword above Dunbar's body as the Krynoid lurches towards them. They manage to escape to a cottage and barricade themselves in. The Krynoid speaks using Keeler’s voice, demanding that the Doctor come out and join it and it will spare the others. Scorby is more than willing to give up the Doctor until Sarah Jane points out that without the Doctor they have no chance. The Doctor suggest Scorby rig up a bomb so they can all escape while the Krynoid is distracted.

Sir Colin gets through to Major Beresford for assistance and sends Amelia home.

Scorby throws his improvised bomb out an upstairs window and the Doctor makes a run for it. The Krynoid goes in pursuit, but the Doctor escapes in the limousine, leaving the Krynoid behind. Scorby tries to find Chase at the greenhouse and discovers where he is from Hargreaves. They begin barricading the windows in preparation for the Krynoid’s attack. Chase makes his way through the grounds and confronts the Krynoid. It notices him and he approaches, taking photographs. It moves toward him as Chase claims he doesn’t mean it harm.

The Doctor arrives at the Bureau as Major Beresford warns he can’t do anything without evidence. The Doctor warns the Krynoid can channel its power through other plants, turning vegetation against humans. He shows them a series of reports of deaths of people near Chase’s estates being killed by plants. He then calls Sarah Jane and tells them Beresford is preparing to attack the Krynoid with a laser gun, but the Krynoid cuts the phone wires. Chase arrives and tells them that it’s the plants’ world, and humans are only parasites. He goes to the manor to develop his photographs, then begins speaking to the plants in his greenhouse.

Scorby, Sarah Jane, and Hargreaves go in to confront Chase and he speaks of how the world will be made perfect. They can’t get through to him as he talks about how he is one with the plants and animals are the enemy. Sarah Jane notices that the plants are closing in on them. The Doctor and a UNIT soldier drive onto the grounds while the plants overwhelm Sarah Jane and the others and start to strangle them.

The Doctor and the UNIT soldier, Sgt. Henderson, arrive and brought chemical plant-killer. They dispose of the plants, saving Scorby and Sarah Jane while the older Hargreaves is dead. Chase runs away and the Doctor and the others make their way into the lab and start removing the plants. But once they're outside Chase locks the door behind them and they can only gaze in horror as the now enormous Krynoid towers over them. UNIT soldiers arrive and open fire with their laser gun, distracting the Krynoid so that the Doctor and his group can get to another door. The Doctor believes that Chase is possessed by the Krynoid and determines to find him and eliminate the threat he poses to them from within.

After they leave, Chase slips back into the laboratory and destroys the loudspeaker system. Unable to find the millionaire, the others return to the laboratory and the Krynoid tries to break its way in. Scorby starts to panic and wants to run, but the Doctor warns him that every plant on the grounds is under the Krynoid’s control. Meanwhile, Chase puts Henderson in the compost machine and activates it, killing the unconscious soldier.

The Doctor works to repair the loudspeaker system as the Krynoid renews its attack, and Scorby panics and runs for it. He tries to make his way across the grounds through fields of hostile plants and makes his way across a shallow pond, but the plants grab and pull him underwater, killing him.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane realize that Henderson is gone and Sarah Jane goes to look for the soldier. She makes her way to the compost machine room and Chase confronts her, telling him he’s become part of the plant world thanks to the Krynoid. Chase plans to support the Krynoid and refers to humanity as parasites, then attacks Sarah Jane and knocks her unconscious.

Beresford contacts the Doctor, who warns they have 15 minutes until the Krynoid germinates, spreading its seeds across England. The Doctor tells them to launch an air strike before it’s too late, and regardless of the fact he and Sarah Jane are at ground zero.

Chase has tied up the unconscious Sarah Jane and starts feeding her into the compost machine. The Doctor arrives, sends Chase flying, and shuts off the machine to untie Sarah Jane. He gets her out but Chase turns the machine back on and throws himself at the Doctor, and the two struggle inside the machine’s bin. The Doctor manages to climb out as Chase is pulled into the machine despite the Doctor’s efforts to save him.

The RAF launches a sighting run as Beresford and Sir Colin look for any signs of the Doctor. Sarah Jane and the Doctor can’t get out through the plant life covering the house but the Doctor rigs a steam pipe and they blast their way out. They make their way through the hostile plant life and take refuge in a clearing filled with cut-down trees, as the RAF opens fire and destroys the Krynoid along with the mansion.

Location shooting at Chase's estate took place at Athelhampton House in Athelhampton, Dorset.

A few weeks before the serial was due to begin its original transmission, the master tape for the first episode was found to be missing. A brief panic ensued and producer Philip Hinchcliffe began planning a re-edit of the second episode allowing the story to begin at this point, but the tape of the opening episode was eventually located, having been misplaced in the tape storage system (apparently due to having been incorrectly numbered.[citation needed])

After a long association with Doctor Who this story was director Douglas Camfield's last involvement with the show.

A novelisation of this serial, written by Philip Hinchcliffe, was published by Target Books in February 1977. The book is heavily edited with several screen sequences removed entirely, including Amelia Ducat's visit to Chase's manor in episode four and the final TARDIS sequence in Antarctica. A slightly "Americanized" version of Hinchcliffe's novel was released as #10 in the Pinnacle Book series in March 1980 with a foreword by Harlan Ellison and a cover illustration by David Mann.

It was planned that this story would be the last of three omnibus editions transmitted over the November/December 1976, the first two, Pyramids of Mars and The Brain of Morbius went out as planned but the Seeds of Doom omnibus was replaced in the schedules by Gerry Anderson's pilot film The Day After Tomorrow (also known as Into Infinity). It is unknown why this occurred, but it is known that although the director, Douglas Camfield, had completed his editing notes, which still exist[citation needed], the serial was not edited into omnibus form until all surviving serials were in the 1980s. This serial was released on VHS in August 1994; the story is planned for release on DVD on 25 October, 2010 and will feature a commentary by Tom Baker, John Challis and producer Phillip Hinchcliffe. Music from this serial was released on the CD Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Trees and Multiforms it is with great pleasure that I announce Issue 8 of The Terrible Zodin is now live and available for free download.

Apologies that we're 2 days behind the promised date, I won't bore you with the technical details of the problems we have but must crave your indulgence that anything past Page 73 will be prone to the occasional typo. We will in time upload a corrected version being the perfectionists that we are but now you're all terribly excited to just get on and read!

This issue is dedicated to the period between production of TV series 1990 - 2003. Whilst many call it The Wilderness Years I hope this issue proves it was anything but. Indeed I hope you're sitting comfortably because TTZ8 is a whopping Target novelization sized 104 pages!

We bring you the concluding part of our interview with Paul Cornell and have a new exclusive interview with Lance Parkin. We sing the praises of the New Adventures, debate canon, dissect the theme tune and throw ourselves in to the Timelash!

Regular columnists Tony Gallichan and Steve Sautter are on board and we're pleased to announce a new member to join their roster, the mysterious Susie Who who'll be coming from the perspective of a casual viewer rather than a hardcore fan.

I could go on and on (I've not mentioned Adric, Ianto, Drashigs, Fitz and fellow fanzines) but why not just read it yourself.

Please click below to download this issue and get ready... for the Cyberman Walk.

Revisitations 1 is a 7 disc boxset containing updated and remastered versions of three previous Doctor Who DVD releases with 3 extra discs of special features, which equates to over 300 mins of brand new content.

Titles Comprise:

The Talons Of Weng-Chiang: In this feature-length adventure set deep in the darkest heart of Victorian London, the Doctor and Leela are confronted by a series of bizarre and horrific events. An innocent cabbie is viciously slain by the agents of a secret Chinese cult; young women disappear quietly and suddenly; in the depths below, the rankest sewers are infested by giant, deadly abominations. The Doctor, helped only by the local pathologist Professor Litefoot and the cowardly Henry Jago, finds himself battling for his life against the hideously deformed Magnus Greel, who pretends to be the ancient Chinese God, Weng-Chiang. But Greel is not the only menace; the Doctor must also deal with the illusionist Li H'sen Chang and the murderous dwarf Mr Sin before Leela falls prey to the Talons of Weng-Chiang.

The Caves Of Androzani: Captured for arms-running on the mining planet of Androzani Minor, the Doctor and Peri are under sentence of death. Then a mysterious masked intruder comes to their aid. But is Sharaz Jek, master android creator, really their saviour? The rulers of the planet are certainly desperate for his head. Then again, he does control the only supply of Spectrox and it is this substance which men are prepared to die for...

Doctor Who: The Movie: It is December 31st, 1999. But will the World survive to see the 21st Century? Deep in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown, a young boy is about to lose his life in a hail of bullets. But the gunfire finds a different target - a stranger who steps out of a British Police Box. Dr Grace Holloway does all she can but cannot save him or understand the mysteries that surround him. Who is this unknown traveller with two hearts? Why has his body disappeared? And who is the madman who appeals for help; claiming to be both the dead man and a time traveller known only as the Doctor? Elsewhere in San Francisco, another time traveller is on the verge of death. For the Master, the Doctor's oldest adversary, survival entails taking over the Doctor's newly-regenerated body. Meddling with the heart of the Doctor's TARDIS he condemns the Earth to destruction at the stroke of midnight, December 31st. As the crowds prepare to celebrate the Millennium, Grace is caught in a desperate race against time to help save the Doctor - and mankind...

Plot

Whilst in flight the TARDIS is attacked by the evil Rani, a renegade Time-Lady. The TARDIS crash-lands on the planet Lakertya. On the floor of the console room, the Doctor begins his sixth regeneration. In his post-regenerative confusion the Doctor is separated from his young companion Mel and tricked into assisting the Rani in her megalomaniac scheme to construct a giant time manipulator. Lost on the barren surface of the planet, Mel has to avoid the Rani's ingenious traps and her monstrous, bat-like servants, the Tetraps. She joins forces with a rebel faction among the Lakertyans, desperate to end the Rani's control of their planet. The Doctor must recover his wits in time to avoid becoming a permanent part of the Rani's plan to collect the genius of the greatest scientific minds in the Universe, of which she has captured many including Einstein, in order that she can create a time manipulator, which would allow the Rani to control time anywhere in the universe, at the expense of all life on Lakertya. The Doctor manages to foil her plan and free the Lakertyans of her evil control. The Rani, however, escapes in her TARDIS but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps who take her prisoner. The Doctor takes all the captured geniuses on board the TARDIS so that he can return them home.

Although this was the first story to feature the Seventh Doctor, it was written in anticipation of Colin Baker returning as the Sixth Doctor. When he declined to even film the regeneration sequence, Sylvester McCoy instead wore his predecessor's costume and a blond curly wig and filmed the sequence himself.

The Seventh Doctor tries on several earlier Doctors' costumes: the Second Doctor's fur coat, the Third Doctor's smoking jacket, the Fourth Doctor's coat and scarf and the Fifth Doctor's cricket outfit, as well as other costumes. He also wears the Sixth Doctor's patchwork coat for much of the first episode, the first example of a Doctor wearing his previous self's clothes for a prolonged period rather than quickly changing after regeneration.

It is never explained how the Rani escaped the predicament in which she had last been seen in The Mark of the Rani (trapped with the Master in her TARDIS and a rapidly-growing Tyrannosaurus rexembryo). The novelisation of Time and the Rani by Pip and Jane Baker claims that the rapidly-growing dinosaur snapped its neck on the ceiling of the Rani's TARDIS and died instantly, while the novel State of Change reveals that the Master escaped the TARDIS by separating the console room from the rest of the ship, forcing the Rani to cannibalise other controls in her TARDIS to pilot it prior to the events of the novel, although the canonicity of this claim is unclear.

The Doctor states that he and the Rani are 953, in line with frequent (presumably approximate) claims by previous Doctors to be 900. However, in the new series, the Ninth Doctor reverted to the 900 figure, the Tenth Doctor claimed to be 903 and later 906 and the Eleventh Doctor 907.

The Loyhargil, lightweight substitute for strange matter, is an anagram of "holy grail".

Amongst the famous Humans the Doctor mentions towards the end as he explains to Mel the severity of the Rani's plans are Elvis and Mrs Malaprop (a fictional character). This is a reference to the Seventh Doctor's frequent use of Malapropisms throughout this story.

Ken Trew created the Seventh Doctor's costume, based on a 1930s golfing design.

The story features a pre-credits sequence where the TARDIS crash-lands on Lakertya. This is only the third time in the series history that there was a pre-credit sequence. Castrovalva (1982) and The Five Doctors (1983) were the first two stories to have a "cold opening". Only one more story of the original series, Remembrance of the Daleks would feature a pre-credits teaser, although this practice became commonplace from "The End of the World" onwards (the 1996 TV movie featured a short sequence incorporated into the title sequence).

The main location used for the planet Lakertya including the exterior of the Rani’s laboratory was Cloford Quarry, in Somerset.

This story was the first time the Doctor Who title sequence was created with a computer. Many of the effects, like the bubble Mel is trapped in, were realised in the same manner.

Keff McCulloch arranged the new opening theme. It was used until the end of the regular run of the series. A new logo for the series was also introduced with this story along with a new opening credits sequence that moved away from the "starfield" motif introduced in 1980. The new theme arrangement marked the first time since the First Doctor's era that the theme's "middle eight" section was regularly heard during the opening credits (the previous two arrangements used the middle eight during the closing credits only). As with the opening sequence from the Sixth Doctor era, the Seventh Doctor's opening does not use a static image of the Doctor, but rather one with limited animation: the image starts as a scowl, then the Doctor winks and smiles. McCoy wears makeup that gives his face and hair a silver/grey appearance.

On the desert world of Sarn, robed natives worship the fire god Logar and follow the Chief Elder, Timanov, who demands obedience. Those who dissent are known as Unbelievers, and two of them, Amyand and Roskal, cause unrest when they claim to have ventured to the top of the sacred fire mountain but not found Logar. One of the Sarns, Malkon, is known as the Chosen One because of the unusual double triangle symbol burnt into his skin: he is also unusual for having been found as a baby on the slopes of the fire mountain.

The same triangle symbol is found on a metal artefact uncovered in an archaeological dig in Lanzarote overseen by Professor Howard Foster. His stepdaughter Perpugilliam (usually called "Peri") Brown is bored with the dig and wants to go travelling in Morocco and when he seeks to prevent this she steals the strange artefact and tries to swim for freedom. Fortunately for her the TARDIS has landed nearby – responding to a distress call sent by the strange artefact - and Turlough sees her drowning and rescues her. Going through her possessions as she recovers he finds the artefact and acknowledges the same triangle symbol is burnt into his own flesh. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS after attempting to triangulate the source of the signal being emitted by the artefact, and the ship dematerialises, seemingly on its own. It soon arrives on Sarn and the Doctor and Turlough set off to explore.

The Doctor's other companion, the android Kamelion, has meanwhile made mental contact with its old controller, the Master, who attempts to assert his control and change Kamelion's appearance from that of Howard. Kamelion tries to warn Peri of the Master but the Time Lord succeeds in gaining control. She flees the TARDIS with the creature in pursuit as the rumblings of the volcanoes of Sarn gather ferocity.

In the Sarn colony Timanov has damned the Unbelievers to be sacrificed to appease Logar and stop the tremors. They flee to a secret base in the mountains which is filled with seismological apparatus and which the Doctor and Turlough stumble across. The Doctor informs the Unbelievers that the tunnels, which have been their refuge are volcanic vents which will soon fill with molten lava. It is also established that Turlough is of the same race as those who colonised the planet, and when the indigenous people see his Misos Triangle, they greet him as a second Chosen One. Turlough realises Malkon may be his brother and becomes even more worried when Peri turns up and mentions the Master.

Another important figure in Sarn mythology is the Outsider, a promised prophet, and the Master/Kamelion fulfils this role admirably. He convinces Timanov of the appropriateness of harsh action and when the Doctor arrives with the Unbelievers they are all seized for burning. However, Malkon and Peri arrive shortly afterward and end this assault, though not before Malkon has been injured. Turlough is aghast when he finds his relative has been shot and the Doctor presses him for as much information as he has on the strange circumstances of Sarn. It seems it is a long abandoned Trion colony planet, and that Turlough, a Trion, suspects some of his family were sent here after a revolution against the hereditary leading clans of his homeworld. He supposes his father died in a crash but that Malkon survived, while he himself was sent in exile to Brendan School In England, overseen by a Trion agent masquerading as a solicitor in Chancery Lane.

The Master/Kamelion has meanwhile seized Peri and uses her to transport a black box into the control room of his TARDIS. It contains a miniature Master – the real thing – who has been shrunken and transformed by a disastrous experiment with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. The Master thus re-established the psychic link with Kamelion to gain the power of movement and has manoeuvred the robot to Sarn so that he can take advantage of the restorative powers of the Numismaton gas within the fire mountain.

Turlough realises the imminent volcano bursts will destroy the Sarn colony so nobly uses a functioning communication unit to get in touch with Trion and plead for a rescue ship to evacuate Sarn. In doing so he abandons his own freedom. When the ship later arrives, the Sarns all depart, along with Turlough and Malkon. They have both been pardoned in an amnesty issued by the new Sarn government. The only one to remain on the planet and face the erupting volcanoes is Timanov, now sure to die, his faith in tatters.

The Doctor meanwhile succeeds in weakening the Master's hold of Kamelion, and interrupts the numismaton experiment. He adds calorific gas to the numismaton surge and seemingly burns the Master alive. The Doctor also puts the terminally wounded Kamelion out of its misery. He returns to the TARDIS with a heavy heart, but with a new companion, Peri, for company.

This was the last story to feature Mark Strickson as Turlough. He returned for the Fifth Doctor's regeneration scene in The Caves of Androzani. Turlough was the last male companion of the Doctor on screen until Adam Mitchell joined the TARDIS crew briefly at the end of the Ninth Doctor episode "Dalek" in 2005. Strickson has said that had he realised that the next season would involve stories consisting of two 50-minute episodes, he would not have departed from the series. He felt that Turlough was not receiving enough development because the 25-minute format necessitated more frequent cliffhangers and therefore less character development.

This serial was originally intended as the swan song for Anthony Ainley as the Master since his contract with the show had come to an end, hence the "death" of the character in the numismaton flames at the story's climax. As a deliberate tease for the audience, the Master's truncated final line is "Won't you even show mercy to your own -", with him apparently being killed by the gas just as he is about to reveal the true nature of his relationship to the Doctor. However, the Master reappeared in the following season's The Mark of the Rani without explanation as to how he survived the flames. Script Editor Eric Saward cut from The Mark of the Rani the explanation for the Master's survival provided by writers Pip and Jane Baker but the explanation is in their novelisation of the serial.)

It was decided that because of the climate of Lanzarote, where the serial was filmed, the cast would have to alter their usual costumes. Although Peter Davison started the story wearing his cricketer outfit, for the rest of the story, he wore a different pair of trousers with question mark braces and a beige floral waistcoat. Strickson shed his usual school uniform in favour of a blue pin-stripe shirt and tan shorts with a pair of swim briefs underneath. Nicola Bryant also wore a pink bikini beneath her clothes to which she stripped down for a couple of scenes, the first time a companion had been seen to wear a two-piece swimsuit since Sarah Jane Smith in the Third Doctor story Death to the Daleks.

Peri's mother and her friend Mrs Van Gysegham, both mentioned in this story, appear in the 2006 audio drama The Reaping.

Although Kamelion dies in this story, he makes a posthumous reappearance in the audio Circular Time.

A novelisation of this serial, written by Peter Grimwade, was published by Target Books in October 1984. A prologue juxtaposing the crash of the vessel Professor Foster is salvaging with the crash of the Trion ship carrying Turlough's family to Sarn opens the novelisation. The Master's teasing last line " Won't you save your own..." is removed.

The DVD was released in June 2010, with commentary by Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant, Mark Strickson and Fiona Cumming, as part of the box set Kamelion Tales along with The King's Demons. It also contained a Special Edition edit of the story overseen by director Fiona Cumming.

Synopsis

In 1215, the Court of King John of England is at the castle of Sir Ranulf Fitzwilliam to extort more taxes, and when the lord refuses to pay the King insults him. To defend his honour his son Hugh takes on the King’s champion, Sir Gilles Estram, in a joust. The latter wins easily, though the joust is disturbed by the arrival of the TARDIS. The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough are greeted as demons and welcomed by the King.

Having established the date, the Doctor concludes the King is not himself - in fact, he is not the King at all, as he is actually in London taking the Crusader’s Oath. Sir Geoffrey de Lacy, the cousin of Sir Ranulf, arrives at the castle and confirms he knows the King is in London. Sir Gilles is about to torture him as a liar during a royal banquet when the Doctor intervenes. It seems the King's champion is not who he claims to be, either: Sir Gilles sheds his disguise and reveals himself to be the Doctor’s arch nemesis, the Master. He flees in his own TARDIS, which had been disguised as an iron maiden.

The King knights the Doctor as his new champion, and he is given run of the castle. After a series of mishaps, including the death of Sir Geoffrey at the Master’s hands, the Doctor confronts the King and the Master and discovers the truth. The monarch is really Kamelion, a war weapon found by the Master on Xeriphas, which can be mentally controlled and used to adopt disguises and personas. Disguised as King John, the Master intends that Kamelion will behave so appallingly so as to provoke a rebellion and topple the real King from his throne, thus robbing the world of Magna Carta, the foundation of parliamentary democracy. It is a small plan on the Master’s usual scale, but nevertheless particularly poisonous to the normal progress of Earth society.

The Doctor resolves the situation by testing the Master in a battle of wills for control over Kamelion. He takes control of the robot and steals it away in the TARDIS, thus foiling the Master’s scheme. Kamelion reverts to its robot form and thanks the Doctor for his assistance and rescue.

Every story during Season 20 had the Doctor face an enemy from each of his past incarnations. The old enemy for this story was the Master, who faced the third, fourth and fifth incarnations of the Doctor. This story pointedly[citation needed] doesn't reveal how the Master escaped the events of his last story Time-Flight (1982).

This story marked the first appearance of Kamelion as voiced by Gerald Flood. Freelance effects designer Richard Gregory and software designer Mike Power gave a demonstration of the robot prototype for Nathan-Turner and Saward. Nathan-Turner was so impressed he commissioned scriptwriter Terence Dudley to develop a storyline to introduce Kamelion into the series. However, shortly after filming, Power died in a boating accident and no one was able to continue his work. Subsequently, Kamelion's made only two appearances before being written out of the series.

In the story, the Master disguises himself as Sir Gilles Estram; Estram being an anagram of "Master". The Master adopted numerous pseudonyms in the course of the series, usually to be plays on the word "Master". Other examples include "Colonel Masters", The Rev. Mr. Magister," and "Professor Thasceles", as well as the unfortunate Tremas, whose body the Master stole. In order to hide the Master's involvement in the story, the first episode and Radio Times listed Estram as being played by "James Stoker", an anagram of "Master's Joke".

The Master's TARDIS is disguised as an iron maiden. The earliest iron maiden known to historians is the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg, which was built in 1515, 300 years after the setting of this story.

The Doctor's claim that King John wanted the Magna Carta as much as his nobles and that he could have defeated the barons easily is historically untrue. John signed the Magna Carta after it became clear that he could not suppress the Baron's Revolt, and immediately appealed to the pope to release him from his oath to support the Charter's terms.

The serial was repeated on BBC One in July 1984 on consecutive Fridays (06/07/84 & 13/07/84). This story was released on VHS in November 1995 in a box set along with a special edition of the subsequent serial The Five Doctors and a postcard book. This story and Planet of Fire were released in a Kamelion-themed box set on 14 June 2010. The DVD contained two commentaries, one with Peter Davison, Isla Blair and Eric Saward, and another with Director Tony Virgo on Part One.

The Doctor and Ace visit England in 1988, where three rival factions - the Cybermen, a group of Nazis and a 17th century sorceress named Lady Peinforte - are attempting to gain control of a statue made of a living metal, validium, that was created by Rassilon as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey.

(This is based on the Extended Version presented on the VHS release rather than that originally broadcast.)

South America, 22 November 1988. In an office full of Nazi imagery, a man looks at a computer screen displaying details on which he sees "Landing Location, Windsor, Grid Ref: 74W 32N, November 23, 1988". He tells his superior, De Flores, who is preparing to shoot a parrot with a bow and arrow.

Windsor, England, 1638. A finely dressed woman is shooting pigeons with a bow and arrow whilst her servant looks on. In her house, an elderly mathematician is performing complex calculations. The woman enters and demands to know how long his work will take, but he is too engrossed in his work to answer her. She goes to the fireplace, and picking up a poisoned arrow, hands it to her servant and tells him to put it with the others. He enquires after a silver arrow, and she replies that she will deal with that arrow personally.

Back in the Nazi office, De Flores addresses a group of followers, telling them they are at the turning point of history. He proposes a toast to the fourth Reich, before taking a silver bow from a display case, preparing to board an aircraft.

In space, a comet is seen from which a glowing energy emanates… Back in Windsor, the mathematician finally reveals the result of his calculations to the woman, telling her that the Nemesis comet circles the earth every 25 years, and its decaying trajectory means that it will eventually fall to Earth from the point where it originally departed — the meadow outside. This will occur on 23 November 1988.

At a jazz performance by Courtney Pine, the Seventh Doctor and Ace relax and enjoy the music. Ace's newspaper has a story about a comet heading to Earth, but she is more interested in the football results. The Doctor hears a bleeping from his pocket watch, and wonders of what it is trying to remind him. Pine's performance ends to applause and Ace asks him to sign a tape for her. As they head back to the TARDIS, a concealed marksman raises a gun towards them. At the sound of gunfire, Ace and the Doctor duck down and retreat quickly towards the TARDIS, but have to jump in the river to escape their pursuers. Two men arrive wielding guns and wearing headsets, but assuming they must have got their targets leave again. The Doctor and Ace then struggle back on to the riverbank, safe now.

In 1638, the mathematician dreams of great inventions that he could discover. The lady tells her servant to bring forth the potion, and he replies that they only require the final ingredient, human blood. They look meaningfully towards the mathematician…

The Doctor fetches out a new tape deck that he has built to replace the one of Ace's that had been destroyed by the Daleks. This one however, can do much more than play tapes. Telling Ace that his reminder had a terminal rating meaning some planet somewhere is facing imminent destruction, an image of the planet Earth appears on the tape deck…

In 1638, the woman and her servant drink their magic potion and begin and are surrounded by a glowing miasma, and beginning to travel forwards through time. They appear in present day Windsor in the middle of a crowded cafe.

Admitting that he has known about the possible destruction of Earth for 350 years, the Doctor and Ace take a quick trip in the TARDIS to Windsor Castle. In its basement, the Doctor tells Ace he is looking for a silver bow.

As the comet finally hits Earth, the Stuart woman's arrow begins to pulsate with light. In the castle, the Doctor and Ace feel the force of the impact. The Doctor tells Ace that it is the return to Earth of a comet called Nemesis, and then reveals that it was he who had launched it into space in the first place. Led by their glowing bow, the group of Nazis head towards the comet in a van. De Flores is in no rush to retrieve the Nemesis yet, as the comet will be too hot due its descent through the atmosphere. He tells his soldiers they will wait in a hotel leaving British police to guard the site, unaware of the true power of the Nemesis. In the castle, Ace finds a card telling the history of the bow, relating how it disappeared in 1788, and that unless a place is kept in the castle for its return, the entire silver statue will return to destroy the world. The Doctor tells her that the statue has indeed returned with that purpose. At this point, the lights dim, and Ace thinks it is a power cut.

Travelling back in time to 1638, the Doctor and Ace go to the time travelling woman's house in Windsor. Seeing the corpse of the mathematician, the Doctor hurriedly covers it with a cloth so that Ace does not see it. The Doctor sees the mathematician's calculations and is impressed that he had been able to work out when the Nemesis comet will return to Earth, only months since the Doctor's previous visit. The Doctor reveals that the woman — Lady Peinforte — made the Nemesis statue depicting herself out of a silver metal that fell to Earth in the meadow outside her house. The Doctor sees a chessboard, the game is going rather badly. He tells Ace that Peinforte managed to travel forward in time to 1988 using the arrow and a rudimentary knowledge of time travel, but mostly black magic. He says that she has a nose for secrets. The Doctor tells Ace the statue is made of a living metal — Validium — which is capable of great destruction.

Peinforte and her servant Richard withdraw from the statue to assess the strength of the police guarding it. The police are having their own problems, their radios are not working, the batteries are dead. Around the comet crash site, vents emerge from the ground spewing gas, causing the policemen to choke and fall unconscious.

The TARDIS materialises outside Windsor Castle in 1988. The Doctor and Ace follow a group of tourists on a guided tour. Seeing a no entry sign, they sneak into the castle. Hearing the bark of dogs, they see a woman coming towards them with several corgis. Although the Doctor does not recognise the woman, Ace immediately realises that it is the Queen Elizabeth II and drags him into hiding. However, when she tells him who it was, he races after the Queen, saying they need the armed forces and police on their side, and what better person could they ask? The Doctor and Ace are seized by security guards before they can get anywhere near the Queen. The Doctor informs them that they got into the castle by travelling in time and space, but they are incredulous. The Doctor tells them the fate of every living person is in danger, but the guards do not believe him. The Doctor dons a pair of oversized glasses and glaring at them intones, "you will believe me! you will let us go!" Distracted by this spectacle, the Doctor and Ace flee into the corridors of the castle. As they run, Ace sees a portrait of herself hanging on a stairwell wall. When she says she does not remember this happening, the Doctor tells her that it has not happened yet.

Richard asks Peinforte what she will do when she gains control of the Nemesis, and she replies that first she will exact revenge on that "predictable little man". She predicts that he will soon arrive, and tells Richard she knows the secret of the "nameless Doctor."

De Flores and his Nazis make their move for the Nemesis comet and see the unconscious policemen. He takes the bow case and places it on the comet, and within the Nemesis statue begins to glow. The Doctor and Ace arrive, and De Flores demands they hand over the arrow. The Doctor reveals that the bow and arrow give the Validium metal critical mass. The Doctor confronts De Flores and asks if he has observed the advanced technology, which has been used to attack the policemen, and the power blackouts that have been occurring over the last few days. De Flores threatens to shoot Ace if they do not tell him where the arrow is, but at this moment a large spacecraft lands near the crash site. The doors open and from within emerge a troop of Cybermen…

The Cyberleader recognises the Doctor, even though his appearance has changed, and tells the onlookers that the Cybermen had predicted his presence. The Nazis open fire on the Cybermen but their bullets are ineffective. The Cybermen open fire and drive the Nazis away. The Doctor says that this happened before, but before it was the Roundheads and Lady Peinforte. Peinforte shoots one of the Cybermen with a bow and arrow. De Flores finds one of her arrows and sees that it is gold-tipped. Peinforte and Richard withdraw, allowing the Nazis and the Cybermen to fight it out, hoping to retrieve the Nemesis in the aftermath. In the confusion, the Doctor and Ace manage to seize the silver bow and return to the TARDIS. Peinforte sees this and tries to shoot them, but her arrow thuds into the TARDIS door just as it dematerialises.

While Peinforte and Richard enter the town of Windsor, the Cybermen begin to cut the Nemesis statue free of the comet. The Doctor and Ace go back to Peinforte's house in 1638. The body of the mathematician has gone, and the chess pieces have also been moved. The Doctor tells Ace that although the mathematician was a genius, he had needed a little help to get started. The Doctor picks up a piece of paper from the desk and throws it into the fireplace. Making a further move on the chessboard, they leave.

Materialising back in the present day, the Doctor explains that Validium was created on Ancient Gallifrey by Omega and Rassilon as the ultimate defence. Some of it however left Gallifrey, and now they must stop Peinforte or anyone else reuniting the statue, the bow and the arrow. Using the bow to lead them, they proceed in the direction of the statue.

In Windsor, Peinforte and Richard are confronted by two thugs, who think they are mugging social workers. The Doctor finds and questions them later; they had been left naked in a tree.

As Richard is terrified by the sight of a bizarre creature, a llama, Peinforte tells him that if he does not help her retrieve the Nemesis, she will abandon him in this future time. He then sees that they are standing by a memorial statue. She tells him that it is his tomb, placed in the grounds of her own burial place. The arrow starts glowing and they realise that that is where the Cybermen have taken the Nemesis statue. As they scour the tomb for Nemesis, the Cybermen prepare to attack, but realising they are armed with gold arrows retreat. Opening up her grave, they see that it does not contain her bones.

Ace destroys the Cybermen vehicle with Nitro-9 explosive. De Flores strikes a deal with the Cyberleader to kill Peinforte and Richard in exchange for a share of control of Earth after its conquest. The Cybermen have no intention of honouring the deal, and plan to kill the Nazis after the death of Peinforte.

The Doctor tells Ace that every time the Nemesis comet approached Earth in its 25 year orbit, it caused destruction: in 1913, the eve of the First World War; 1938, Hitler annexes Austria; 1963 Kennedy assassinated, and now it is 1988. They use the tape deck scanner trying to find the cyber-fleet.

Opening up the grave fully, Peinforte gazes upon her own image shown on the Nemesis statue. However, De Flores and his man arrives with guns, and Richard has only one arrow left. In fear, he hands over the arrow to De Flores and drags Peinforte away leaving the Nazis in control of Nemesis. De Flores believes he now has all three parts of the Validium. Placing the arrow in the statues hands, it becomes more animated. The Cybermen arrive and ask De Flores where the bow is. When he opens the case he sees that he does not have it at all.

The Doctor sees a chameleon and realises the Cyber-fleet is shrouded, and making the adjustment to the tape deck reveals the entire fleet of Cyber-warships, thousands of them…

The Doctor decides to activate the Validium by taking the bow to the crypt. When Ace seems frightened, the Doctor tells her she can wait in the TARDIS, but she refuses and wants to accompany the Doctor.

Meanwhile, De Flores realises he has overplayed his hand and tries to negotiate with the Cyberleader. The Cyberleader orders his lieutenant to kill De Flores, but he throws gold dust in the leader's face and flees. The other Nazi however turns on De Flores and offers him to the Cybermen, asking to be made into a Cyberman himself. The two Nazis are then taken to be prepared for Cyber-conversion. As the Doctor and Ace arrive at the crypt, the jazz tape finishes playing and the Cybermen's communications begin working. The Doctor enters the crypt holding the bow, and manoeuvring past the Cybermen with Ace places the bow in the Statue's hands but snatches it away again. The statue awakens and begins to follow the bow.

Going back to 1638, the Doctor continues his chess game against his unknown opponent. Ace asks him who brought the Validium to Earth in the first place, and what is really going on but he remains silent. Taking a bag of gold coins, they leave.

Peinforte begins to rant about all power being hers and her intent to retrieve the Nemesis. They come to the road, and attempt to hitch a lift in a passing car. Richard stands with his thumb out but no cars stops for them. Seeing this fail, Peinforte steps into the middle of the road. A large car stops, and an American woman offers to take them into Windsor. She tells them that she is in England discovering her roots. Revealing she is descended from the 17th century Remington family, Peinforte calls them thieves and swindlers. Mentioning a Dorothea Remington, the American woman recognises the name, and Peinforte knows that Dorothea died in 1621 from a slow poison.

With the Cybermen set off after the Nemesis and the Doctor, De Flores is released from his bonds by his man, who had deceived the Cybermen into thinking he had betrayed the Nazi leader. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace materialise inside the hangar containing the comet. Soon the Nemesis statue arrives, and the Doctor gives it the bow. The Nemesis speaks to Ace telling her that it was fashioned by Peinforte into its current beautiful form, but that it has also had horrific forms in the past, and will again in the future. The Cybermen arrive and Ace shoots one down using a gold coin and a catapult. The Cybermen pursue her, but she manages to elude them. The Doctor sets the trajectory of the rocket sled containing the Nemesis, headed for the Cyber-fleet. Ace becomes trapped on a gantry between two Cybermen and the Cyberleader, with only a single remaining gold coin. The Cybermen lift their guns to shoot her, but she fires the gold coin at the Cyberleader and ducks, causing the other two Cybermen to shoot each other instead. The Nemesis asks the Doctor if she must destroy the entire Cyber-fleet, to which he says that she must. She asks the Doctor whether she will be needed again, or whether she will have her freedom, but the Doctor hushes her.

Ace arrives down from the gantry, but is surrounded by two more Cybermen. They demand that the Doctor hands the bow over to them, but the Doctor threatens to destroy the bow if they harm her. Placing it in front of the rocket sled engines, he grabs Ace. As the two Cybermen advance towards them, the engines fire killing the two Cybermen. However, up on the gantry the Cyberleader plucks the gold coin from its chest unit. De Flores arrives and picks up the bow. He speaks to the Nemesis, but she remains silent. The Cyberleader raises his gun and shoots De Flores dead, and demands that the Doctor hands over the bow. At this point, Peinforte and Richard arrive. Demanding the bow for herself, she asks Ace who the Doctor is, and whether she knows where he came from. Ace says that nobody knows who the Doctor is, but Peinforte says that she does. When Ace asks how, she says the Nemesis told her. The Doctor asks what will happen if he gives her the bow, to which Peinforte replies his power will be hers, but his secrets remain his own. Appearing to concede defeat, the Doctor says he is surrendering, but not to Peinforte, rather to the Cybermen. Peinforte threatens to reveal his secrets, so he calls her bluff. She says that she will tell them of Gallifrey, of the Old Time, the time of Chaos. However, the Cyberleader says that the secrets of the Time Lords are of no interest of the Cybermen.

The Cyberleader tells the Doctor to cancel the Nemesis's destructive capabilities. The Doctor asks the statue if she understands the Cyberleader's instructions, and she replies "perfectly". The triumphant Cyberleader tells the Doctor to set that statue's course to rendezvous with the Cyberfleet. He tells them that the Earth will become their new base planet, the new Mondas. Launching the Nemesis, Peinforte screams and throws herself into the rocket sled and merges with the Nemesis. The rocket sled takes off and heads out into space. It arrives in the midst of the Cyber-fleet and there is an enormous explosion, destroying all of the Cyber-warships. The Cyberleader asks how it is possible, and the Doctor replies that he merely asked if Nemesis had understood the instruction, but had not said anything about obeying them. The Cyberleader prepares to kill the Doctor, but Richard grabs the gold-tipped arrow from the TARDIS door, and stabs it into the Cyberleader's chest unit, finally killing it.

The Doctor and Ace return Richard to 1638. There, Richard and a Stuart woman perform a concert for them. Ace asks the Doctor who he really is, but he just puts a finger to his lips and listens to the music…

In this story, Lady Peinforte claims to be the only one to know the Doctor's true identity. When Ace says she knows the Doctor is a Time Lord, Peinforte shakes her head conspiratorially. Neither this nor any further televised story elaborates, although in a deleted scene from Remembrance of the Daleks, the Doctor claims to be "far more than just another Time Lord"; further omissions from Survival would have featured the Master challenging the Doctor's identification as a Time Lord. These elements are all part of what fans have dubbed the Cartmel Masterplan, a long-term scheme by the show's script editor to return some mystery to the show by way of questioning certain aspects of continuity — in particular the Doctor's character. Although the series was cancelled before the plan could run its course, its spirit was continued in the subsequent New Adventures novel line. (See The Other.)

Although the Cybermen's weakness to gold was established in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), the Cybermen in Silver Nemesis are far more vulnerable than usual. In Earthshock, broadcast only six years earlier, the Doctor had to grate gold filings directly into the Cyber Leader's chest unit then shoot it several times before it was defeated. In this serial, even a low-velocity impact with a gold (or gold plated) object proves instantly fatal to the Cybermen.

The Doctor comments, with apparent seriousness, that Lady Peinforte can use black magic, the first time the series refers to magic as anything more than trickery. The Curse of Fenric later implies that Fenric himself had to some degree manipulated these events, leaving open the question as to whether Peinforte used magic or merely believed she was doing so.

The first episode of this serial features a brief guest appearance by the British jazz musician Courtney Pine as himself.

In this serial, the Doctor briefly encounters Queen Elizabeth II, played by an actress. The producers attempted to get the real monarch to appear on the programme (just as members of the British Royal Family had appeared as themselves on Coronation Street), but arrangements could not be agreed.[citation needed]

Episodes two and three were the second and third respectively of the series ever to be premiered outside of the United Kingdom (the first being The Five Doctors), being shown as part of a compilation broadcast of the story on New Zealand's TVNZ, after part one had shown in the UK but prior to the other two being transmitted there.[5]

On 3 May 1993 an extended version of this three-part serial was released on VHS. Apart from featuring footage not shown in the original broadcast, the video included a short documentary looking back at the production of the adventure.

The DVD will include only the original three part broadcast version, much to the consternation of a number of Doctor Who fans who consider the extended version to be the definitive one. Instead, the footage from the extended version will be included in the deleted scenes section.

The Whoovers are a friendly group of people from across Derbyshire drawn together by one thing - an admiration of the television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs.

We usually meet on the first Friday of each month and after the very friendly and informal meeting we usually retire to The Old Spa Inn just up the road on Abbey Street to continue the discussions. The meetings are full of fun stuff like quizzes, the chance to see various rare clips from the shows history, The Zero Room - our version of Room 101, Desert Island Docs (our version of Desert Island Discs) and a raffle to win Doctor Who merchandise. Many of the members are extremely knowledgeable about the series, but you certainly don't need to be an expert to attend or even enjoy the meetings.

From time to time the meetings even invite a special guest from the world of Doctor Who - actors, writers, directors, etc. You get the chance to meet the people who make Doctor Who, get their autograph and even have your photo taken with them.

The group also organises occassional excursions - 'Wholidays' - to places of 'Who' interest and have also just held our very first Doctor Who convention - Whooverville - which included a whole handful of special guests.

Sound sad and geeky? - Far from it! The content of the meetings varies from serious (though never desperately so) to downright hilarious. The Whoovers is only one of many fan groups which meet regularly up and down the country, but we happen to think it's one of the very best. Whether you're a new fan or an old one, come along and you'll be made most welcome!

Whoovers fan group on Facebook!

Why not chat & message other Doctor Who fans via the Whoovers fan group on Facebook. Simply click the logo on the right and log in/join!

Revenge of the Cybermen was the fifth and final story of Season 12 (although it was not originally intended as the finale). The story saw the return of the Cybermen as lead villains for the first time since the 1968 story The Invasion, and their only appearance (barring flashbacks) until Earthshock in Season 19.

It was further significant for being the first Doctor Who story released on home video.

Everyone but a few men of the crew of Nerva Beacon have been killed by Cybermats. The Doctor realises that the Cybermen are close by and are hoping to destroy the planet Voga, the famous planet of gold. Gold is lethal to the Cybermen and Voga must be destroyed to enable their survival. The Doctor is captured and is sent to Voga with two humans, all three with bombs strapped to them. The Cybermen hope to detonate them in a sensitive spot in order to destroy Voga. But the Doctor manages to defuse the bombs, so instead the Cybermen decide to fill Nerva Beacon with bombs and crash into Voga. But the Doctor gets to Nerva and prevents it from destroying the planet of gold. Meanwhile the Cybermen retreat into their ship and the Vogans destroy it with a missile of their own.

The Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane use the Time Ring, spinning their way through time and space back to Space Station Nerva. They land back in the control room they left when they last beamed down to Earth, but Sarah notices the TARDIS is not there. The Doctor tells Sarah that the time ship is drifting back in time towards them and they just need to wait for her to catch up. A door slides open, revealing a dead body, and many more beyond, littering the outer ring of the station.

In a communications room, crewman Warner warns off an approaching spaceship away from Nerva Beacon, which is under quarantine due to a plague. Professor Kellman, a planetary surveyor, asks Commander Stevenson how long they can run a 50-man station with three men, but the other officer, Lester, thinks they can continue to manage. Nerva is on a 30-year assignment to warn ships away from Voga, the new asteroid it is orbiting, until its presence is updated on all the starcharts of inbound ships.

The time travellers find a sealed door leading to Section Q. The Doctor surmises that this is the same station they left, but thousands of years in the past, before the solar flares that devastated Earth. As the Doctor tries to get through the door, the trio fail to see a silver, snake-like creature — a cybermat — crawling around the bodies behind them.

Somewhere else, an alien tries to contact Nerva, and barely gets through to Warner before he is shot by two more of his own kind. The only place the signal could have come from is Voga, but Kellman tells Warner that he set up the transmat station there and spent six months cataloguing its rocks. Voga had drifted into the solar system 50 years before and had been captured by Jupiter's gravity. An asteroid of that size drifting between star systems could not support life and he warns against going down to Voga and spreading the plague. Warner logs the call anyway. The Doctor manages to open the sealed door, which activates an alarm.

On Voga, Vorus, leader of the Guardians of the mines, orders his men to bury the dead Vogan that was shot earlier. Magrik, his aide, tells him that the dead Vogan was frightened of Vorus's plan. Vorus tells him that they can trust their agent on Nerva. Gold buys humans, and they have more gold on Voga than in the rest of the galaxy. The reason the agent had not contacted them is probably because the Cybermen are monitoring transmissions.

In the communications room, the Cybermat attacks Warner, biting him before it is thrown off. Warner collapses, glowing veins appearing on his face while Kellman enters and pulls the magnetic log tape from the console. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Harry and Sarah have reached the forward control room, mere seconds before Lester and Stevenson enter levelling their weapons at them. The door behind them slides open to reveal the communications room, and Kellman brings Stevenson to Warner's fallen form.

When Stevenson sees that his crewman has the plague, he prepares to shoot Warner to stop the infection's spread, but the Doctor stops him. The Doctor lies, saying that they are a medical team sent from Earth, and convince Stevenson to let Harry examine Warner. They take Warner to the crew quarters as Kellman returns to his own room and spies on the Doctor and Stevenson in the communications room using an assembled device. Stevenson tells the Doctor about the asteroid, formerly named Neo Phobos, but renamed Voga by Kellman. The Doctor recognises the name: Voga, the Planet of Gold, and realises that Cybermen are involved. Stevenson says the Cybermen died out centuries before, but the Doctor points out they merely vanished after attacking Voga at the end of the last Cyber-War. Hearing all this, Kellman contacts a Cybership nearby, its crew commanded by a Cyber Leader with a black helmet. The ship moves towards Nerva.

Warner is dead. When the Doctor examines the body he finds two puncture wounds, indicating that Warner was injected with poison and confirming the Doctor's suspicion that there is no plague. The Doctor says that if he had seen Warner earlier he might have been able to use Nerva's transmat to filter out the poison from his system. The Doctor has another suspicion; investigating Kellman's quarters, he finds the communications device as well as some gold. The Doctor hides when Kellman returns, but Kellman realises that someone has been inside the room. He sabotages the room, electrifying the floor and sending gas pouring up from it. Keeping off the floor, the Doctor reaches the door to open it with his sonic screwdriver. Meanwhile, Sarah is attacked by the cybermat.

The Doctor escapes Kellman's room and hears Sarah scream. He throws the Cybermat to the floor and kills it with some gold dust, but Sarah has already been bitten. The Doctor carries her to the transmat chamber, handing her to Harry, and prepares to beam them down to Voga and back. However, Kellman has taken the transmat's pentalium drive. The Doctor reconfigures the transmat to bypass the sabotaged system while Stevenson and Lester go and confront Kellman. On Voga, Vorus observes a giant rocket, the Sky Striker. He tells Magrik that his agent has informed them that the Cybermen are heading for the beacon. Vorus wants the Sky Striker fitted with its bomb head in four hours.

Obseving the incoming craft via radar

The Doctor jury rigs the transmat, and Harry and Sarah beam down to Voga. With the poison filtered out, Sarah instantly recovers. As Harry notices that the cavern floor is littered with gold, Vogans arrive and capture them. Harry and Sarah are brought before Vorus, who wants to know who is still alive on Nerva. However, the answers will have to wait. Harry and Sarah are taken away while Vorus answers a call from Councillor Tyrum, who arranges for them to meet.

Lester and Stevenson capture Kellman. The Doctor explains that the Cybermen fear Voga because gold, as a non-corrodible substance, plates their breathing apparatus and suffocates them. The Doctor cannot get Harry and Sarah back without the pentalium drive, but Kellman feigns ignorance, trying to buy time until the Cybermen arrive. The Doctor uses a control box he found in Kellman's room to activate a Cybermat, threatening Kellman with it until he reveals that the drive is around his neck.

Harry and Sarah are chained up in a cave, where Harry notes that the chains are solid gold, which is soft metal that perhaps they can file through. Meanwhile, Tyrum tells Vorus that he knows that aliens have come to Voga. He also knows that Vorus wants Voga to emerge as a trading power again and not hide from the Cybermen, who apparently disappeared centuries ago. Because of this, Tyrum no longer trusts Vorus or the Guardians, and will send his Militia to take over the mines. Vorus is furious, but Tyrum says his troops have orders to crush any resistance.

Fighting breaks out in the mines between the Guardians and the Militia. Vorus tells Magrik to keep Tyrum from finding out about the Sky Striker, and to kill the two humans immediately. Harry and Sarah have managed to free themselves, however, and get away before the execution team arrives. They are pursued by more Guardians, who fire at them. Harry and Sarah are cornered and about to be shot when Militia troops appear, forcing the Guardians to stand down.

The Doctor has repaired the transmat, but is unable to lock on to Harry and Sarah as they have left the receptor circle. At that point, Lester detects an incoming ship, but it does not respond to their signals. As the Cybership docks, the Doctor recognises it for what it is, but is unable to lock the hatch. The Cybermen come through, impervious to gunfire, and shoot all three men down.

The Cyber Leader tells Kellman that the three men are not dead, merely neutralised, as they are necessary to their plan. Kellman set the transmat receptors mere yards from a shaft that leads into the core of Voga. As the environment is hostile to Cybermen, the three men will carry explosives down to Voga and destroy the asteroid. Kellman insists on going down to Voga first to check that the transmat is functioning properly and the Cyber Leader beams him down. There, he runs into some Militia. Not realising the distinction between them and the Guardians, he demands to see Vorus and is taken away while trying to warn them that they are all in danger. Meanwhile, Harry and Sarah are brought before Tyrum and tell their story. When Harry mentions the cybermats, Tyrum asks Harry and Sarah to accompany him to confront Vorus.

The Doctor wonders what Kellman's reward is, if it is not Voga's gold. He taunts the Cyber Leader, saying that the Cybermen were finished once humans discovered their weakness to gold and ended the Cyber-Wars. Cyber Leader tells the Doctor that is the reason why Voga must be destroyed before the Cybermen begin their campaign again. The Cyber Leader says that Kellman was promised the rule of the solar system after the Cybermen had conquered it.

With Cyberbombs strapped to their backs, the Doctor, Lester and Stevenson are briefed. They are to plant the bombs in the core of the planet, after which they have 14 minutes to return and escape via transmat. If they try to remove their harnesses before they reach the target zone, a secondary explosion will kill them. Their progress will be followed by radar. The three beam down, accompanied by two Cybermen. Militia arrive and start to fire on the Cybermen, who make short work of the Vogans. None of the three men believe that the Cyber Leader will keep his word about letting them escape, but they have to keep moving towards the target zone as they are being monitored. On Nerva, the Cyber Leader declares that Kellman is of no further use to them.

Tyrum questions Kellman, who tells him that he and Vorus were working to lure the Cybermen to the beacon, which Vorus has targeted with a rocket. At that moment, a Militia man arrives to tell Tyrum about the arrival of the Cybermen, and how their weapons are useless. Kellman urges them to use the rocket. Tyrum orders his men to use every weapon they can while he speaks to Vorus. Harry tells Sarah to get back to Nerva and warn the Doctor while he tries to stop the rocket from being fired.

When Tyrum tells Vorus about the Cybermen on Voga, he shows Tyrum the Sky Striker, which he has been working on for two years. However, with the Cybermen already on Voga, they have no time to get it ready. Vorus claims his plans were to just free his people from the fear of the Cybermen and bring them back into the light. Tyrum scoffs, seeing as Vorus has allied himself with Kellman, a double agent and murderer, motivated only by the promise of gold. Harry suggests finding another way into the core to stop the bombs.

The Cybermen continue their slaughter of the Vogans as the bomb timer ticks down even further. Sarah transmats back to Nerva, where she overhears the Cybermen monitoring the three men's progress. However, the deeper the three men go, the heavier the concentration of gold interferes with the radar. The men continue onward, however to the centre of the asteroid.

Harry and Kellman, meanwhile, are crawling down a cross shaft towards the same location. With the exit blocked, Harry pushes against the rocks, causing a rock slide. Kellman pushes Harry out of the way, but is crushed to death by a boulder, while on the other side, rocks rain down on the Doctor. Harry exits the shaft and finds the Doctor unconscious. Not realising the danger, Harry tries to unbuckle the Doctor's harness.

Fortunately, Harry is stopped by Lester. The Doctor awakens and conceives a plan. Stevenson will continue on and create a radar trail, while the rest use the cross shaft to surprise and attack the Cybermen with gold. The Doctor and Harry jump the two Cybermen, trying to push gold dust into their chest plates. However, the Cybermen are too strong, and Harry and the Doctor are forced to retreat. Lester leaps onto the Cybermen and undoes his harness, the explosion killing both himself and the Cybermen.

With the loss of contact, the Cyber Leader orders immediate detonation. Sarah tries to stop them but is thrown to the floor. However, when the button is pressed, no explosion follows. The Doctor has managed to disarm the countdown device, which allows him to release his harness safely. With Sarah tied up, the Cyber Leader now plans to send Nerva, loaded with more Cyberbombs, into Voga's centre to destroy it.

Magrik tells Vorus that the Sky Striker is now ready, but before he can launch it, the Doctor asks them to give him 15 minutes to transmat to Nerva and deal with the Cybermen himself, armed with a bag of gold dust. If he does not contact them by that time, then they can launch the rocket.

The Doctor reaches Nerva and frees Sarah while the Cybermen are loading the bombs. He takes the Cybermat and its control box, filling the Cybermat with gold dust. The Doctor sends the Cybermat to attack a Cyberman, injecting him with the dust and killing him. As Nerva begins to move towards Voga, Vorus sees this and attempts to fire the rocket. Tyrum shoots Vorus, but as the Guardian dies, he triggers the launch.

The Doctor and Sarah's attack on the remaining Cybermen fails; The Doctor is forced by the Cyberleader to tie himself and Sarah up and they are left to perish in the crash. However, the Sky Striker is approaching just as fast. The Doctor manages to untie them both with a trick learned from Harry Houdini, and contacts Voga, instructing them to steer the rocket towards the Cybership that is just leaving. The Sky Striker veers away from Nerva and destroys the Cybership instead. However, the beacon is still on a collision course. The Doctor manages to unlock the gyro controls, skimming Nerva just above Voga's surface until they reach the other side of the asteroid and open space.

The TARDIS materialises in the control room just as Harry arrives via transmat. The Doctor tells his companions to hurry up; he's received a message from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart through the space-time telegraph the Doctor left him, which means it, is a grave emergency. Although Harry asks if they should say good-bye to the Commander, Sarah tells him not to argue. The three rush into the TARDIS and it dematerialises.

Between the broadcast of Episodes 1 and 2, William Hartnell, the First Doctor, passed away. Ironically he died during broadcast of a serial that served to reintroduce the Cybermen -- his final solo appearance as the Doctor occurred during the serial that introduced them.

The symbol seen hanging in the Vogan audience chamber (and smaller versions on the Vogan costumes), would later be re-used in The Deadly Assassin, and become better known thereafter as the Seal of Rassilon. (The Time Lords may have had some influence on Voga during the time before their Non-Intervention policy.)

The launching of the Skystriker is represented by rather obvious NASA stock footage of a Saturn V rocket taking off.

The Doctor was wearing a long brown coat and hat at the end of the previous story, but they've vanished when he materializes.

Lester wears his interplanetary Space command insignia upside down.

When the Doctor enters the TARDIS in episode four the paper printout of the space/time telegraph can be seen hanging on a hook just inside the door.

At the end of the story, the Cyber-ship explodes into flames, yet oxygen is need for fire, and The Cybermen do not breathe, as seen in The Moonbase so why would the cybermen have oxygen on there ship? they may take prisoners

This story takes place after the Cyber-Wars, which started in 2526 in DW: Earthshock. The Cybermen of that story look at video of past encounters with the Doctor and watch him deliver the "no planet" line. It later becomes clear (Attack of the Cybermen) that the Cybermen have had access to time travel technology.

The Cybermen's first home planet Mondas was destroyed in DW: The Tenth Planet, while their second home planet Telos was destroyed in BFA: Telos, which was made some time after this story.

Revenge of the Cybemen will be released on DVD in the UK on 9th August 2010, along with Silver Nemesis. Released on VHS and Betamax as Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen. This story was the first Doctor Who story to be released to the home video market.

An alien craft bearing the imperious and ruthless Dominators arrives on the peaceful planet of Dulkis. The senior, Navigator Rago, is at odds with Probationer Toba, making for an uneasy partnership. The craft lands on the Island of Death, a nuclear test site that now houses an anti-war museum, and soon absorbs all the radiation on the island. The robotic Quarks are then sent out by the Dominators to prepare bore holes into the planet’s crust, since the Dominators wish to convert the planet into rocket fuel. Toba uses the Quarks to fire on and kill three indolent, rich adventure seekers who stumble across his project. Their pilot Cully, however, survives by hiding himself away, though the craft that brought him to the island is destroyed. Rago is furious that these potential slaves have just been wasted.

The TARDIS has arrived on another part of the island and the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Zoe begin to look around. The Doctor has been to Dulkis before and is looking forward to a good holiday when they hear the explosion of the craft being destroyed. They take shelter in the museum building where they meet three other newly arrived Dulcians, Educator Balan and his young charges Teel and Kando. All are puzzled that the radiation reading on the Island reads nil, since it should be radioactive after the nuclear explosion 172 years earlier, and since that time the Dulcian civilisation has rejected all weapons. Cully arrives too, and tells them about the murderous Dominators and their robots. Balan does not accept this: he knows the son of the Director of the ruling council is well known as a con artist.

The Quarks have meanwhile marked out their drill sites, and begin work on drilling the outer bore holes. However, their power supply seems limited, and Rago is very keen to conserve their energy supplies to vital activities only. This actually saves the Doctor and Jamie when they are captured by a patrol of Quarks rather than killed, and taken to the Dominator ship for questioning and scanning. A scan of Jamie is presumed to apply to them both and to the Dulcian race as a whole, who are thus described as possible but not definite for conversion into a slave force. When it is time for an intelligence test the Doctor feigns stupidity to prove their worthlessness. He also fails to use a weapon from the Dulcian museum, falsely claiming such military technology has been lost to the Dulcians. The Doctor and Jamie are freed as worthless idiots.

Cully has contacted his father, Director Senex, who orders him to recharge Balan’s travel capsule and use it to return to the Capital City. He takes Zoe with him on the journey to the Council Chamber, where the discussion lacks focus and purpose. Senex refuses to believe that Cully is telling the truth, despite Zoe’s protests, so Cully steals a travel pod and heads back to the island with Zoe to get proof of their story. At the same time the Doctor and Jamie take Balan’s pod to the Capitol City. They are angry that Cully and Zoe have been allowed to return to danger and have real trouble convincing the Council of the threat which the Dominators pose, with the Dulcians repeatedly demonstrating a totally pacifist stance. The true danger is only revealed when the Council obtains a visual image of the survey station near the museum which the Quarks destroyed on Toba’s instructions – another case of wasted power in the eyes of an increasingly exasperated Rago.

The Dominators have meanwhile captured Balan, Teel and Kando, using them for further tests on their species, which the Dominators assume are a higher life-form than the Doctor. They are assigned to work as slaves in the drilling sites under the supervision of the Quarks. Zoe and Cully are soon captured too and added to the slave force, but find Balan and Kando totally opposed to using force against the overseeing Quarks. Over time, however, they all start to falter under the weight of the burden of digging the bore hole, with Balan collapsing first. Cully manages to sneak away back to the museum and capture a laser weapon stored there as an exhibit.

The Doctor and Jamie have meanwhile taken control of a travel pod and steer it back to the Island of Death. Jamie links up with Cully at the museum while the Doctor is captured by Quarks and taken with the slave force back to the Dominator ship. Cully uses the gun to destroy a Quark, prompting another of Toba’s rages. The museum is destroyed in retaliation, which once more enfuriates Rago. He orders the Quarks to hold the Doctor and Zoe for further tests while Balan, Kando, and Teel are sent to excavate to the central bore site.

Jamie and Cully survived the explosion in the museum and are hiding in a nuclear bunker below the main building. After a struggle they succeed in opening the hatch above them. They survey the area and succeed in crushing a Quark with a boulder. An angry Toba is alerted via an alarm on the ship and heads off to investigate how another Quark has been destroyed, leaving the Doctor and Zoe free to roam the Dominator ship and work out more about its power source. Jamie and Cully remain free and use the opportunity to attack other Quarks in a series of guerrilla raids.

The Dulcian Council debates the situation and not even Tensa, Chairman of the Emergencies Committee, can spur them into decisive action. The key moment comes when Rago himself uses the travel pod appropriated by the Doctor to travel to the Capitol with a Quark. The robot kills Tensa on command. Rago says that the fittest Dulcians will now all be converted into a slave force to use on the Dominator homeworld, with the Quarks used there redeployed to the front line of their expanding empire. Those not selected will be left on Dulkis to die, as the planet is doomed. Having finished his ultimatum, Rago stalks away.

Toba now returns to the ship, with his slaves in tow, and demands to know who destroyed the Quark. Balan is killed for refusing to answer, and the Doctor is selected to die next. Luckily for him Rago returns and is incensed that Toba has wasted more lives and not even begun work on digging the central bore hole even if the four perimeter ones have been completed. Toba is sent to complete the drilling and prepare the bore rockets, using the Quarks and the Doctor, Zoe, Teel and Kando as slaves; while Rago focuses on a precious seed device that is intended to be dropped down the central bore hole. Rago also hears from the Fleet Leader that no Dulcian slave force is to be assembled: all the Dulcians are now to stay on the planet to die when it is destroyed.

The dig proceeds with the Doctor and the other slaves making some progress, but when Toba abandons his watch post Jamie and Cully seize their opportunity and disable another Quark to enable the freedom of their friends. The Doctor has now worked out the Dominator scheme: a nuclear fission seed will be dropped down the bore hole which will convert the entire planet into a radioactive mass ideal for use in powering the Dominator fleet. The four outer bores are for launching rockets through the planet’s crust – which is especially thin at the point of the Island – and will cause volcanoes to erupt; while the seed will then be used to detonate the volcanoes being created and begin a radioactive chain-reaction. Their collective response is to capture the seed and they begin digging a perpendicular tunnel which should reach the central bore hole and enable them to steal the deadly device before it can detonate. However, there is little that can be done to stop the volcano creation. Jamie and Cully support this effort by continuing to attack and destroy Quarks with homemade bombs. This has the desired effect of totally fracturing the relationship between Rago and Toba, as they argue about priorities rather than prioritising the dig, but yet the bore hole is still ultimately completed and the seed primed.

The access tunnel scheme is successful and the Doctor intercepts the seed during its descent, telling his friends that it cannot be defused. Cully, Teel and Kando are told to flee in the remaining travel pod, while Jamie and Zoe are sent to the TARDIS to wait. The Doctor runs to the Dominator ship and manages to smuggle the seed on board before the craft lifts off. It soon departs and the Dominators’ last vision is of the seed device rolling on the floor toward them. The Doctor watches the Dominator ship being destroyed and then heads back to the TARDIS where he and his two companions must depart in a hurry to avoid the advancing lava flows from the new volcanoes

The Doctor and Amy Pond travel to the oldest planet in the universe where a legendary message turns out to be another "calling card" of River Song. Following the coordinates from the message, they arrive at Roman Britain in 102 AD and find River posing as Cleopatra. River explains that she has received warning of the destruction of the TARDIS from a painting by Vincent van Gogh ("Vincent and the Doctor") that in 1941 reached Winston Churchill and Professor Bracewell ("Victory of the Daleks"). Churchill had attempted to warn the Doctor himself, but the TARDIS instead connected his call to River; she subsequently escaped from prison and encountered Liz 10 ("The Beast Below"), who had Van Gogh's painting in her collection, and then used a vortex manipulator to transport herself to the oldest planet then to the coordinates in the painting. The Doctor realises the painting and destruction of the TARDIS may be connected to the "Pandorica", a fabled prison for the universe's deadliest being, and rationalises that it must be stored in a memorable location, the site of Stonehenge.

At Stonehenge, the Doctor, Amy, and River find a passage to an underground area, which the Doctor terms "the Underhenge". Inside, they find the Pandorica, a room-sized metal box outfitted with every type of lock imaginable. The Doctor and River become concerned when they discover that the Pandorica is opening from inside and transmitting a message across time and space, drawing many of the Doctor's foes to Earth. River warns that "everything that ever hated [the Doctor] is coming tonight". The Doctor refuses to flee and instead asks River to seek help from the nearby Roman legion while he remains with the Pandorica. She finds the legion's commander reluctant, though one mysterious centurion and fifty others do volunteer.

Back underground, while Amy questions the Doctor about the engagement ring she has found, the pair are attacked by the debris of a Cyberman's suit trying to find a new host. The Doctor is stunned and Amy sedated with a flechette. She runs away and is rescued by the mysterious centurion, who turns out to be Rory Williams. The revived Doctor is baffled to find Rory alive, since he is supposed to have been erased from history by a crack in the universe ("Cold Blood"). Rory is even more confused and says he simply remembers dying one second and being a Roman soldier the next.

As more enemies gather in orbit, the Doctor temporarily delays the aliens and instructs River to bring the TARDIS to Stonehenge. Although shown to be an expert TARDIS pilot ("The Time of Angels"), River now finds the machine impossible to control and gets locked on course for Amy's house on 26 June 2010 - the very date of the time energy explosion that caused the cracks in the universe ("Flesh and Stone"). Whilst she ventures outside, the scanner screen suddenly cracks into the same shape as the other cracks in the universe, while an ominous voice declares "silence will fall". River finds large burn-marks on the lawn, and then begins to explore Amy's bedroom, still full of representations of the Doctor and the TARDIS. She also finds elements such as Pandora's box and the Roman soldiers within Amy's drawings and books. She relays this to the Doctor, who starts to worry they might all be imaginary constructs taken from Amy's mind to entrap him, and believing their own cover story until they are activated.

Rory meanwhile has an emotional conversation with Amy as he tries to connect with her using the engagement ring that he had left aboard the TARDIS, but she is still unable to remember him. The TARDIS begins to malfunction dangerously. Upon discovery of the date to which River has been taken, the Doctor orders her to get out of that timezone, but the TARDIS is now controlled remotely. He urges her to get out, as the TARDIS engines are supposed to shut down automatically when no one is on board, but she finds herself locked in.

Suddenly, Rory and the 'legionaries' with the Doctor are activated: they are Autons. The Rory Auton remains with Amy, struggling to retain his human consciousness and stop himself from killing her. Shortly after she remembers who he is, he loses control and shoots her. Meanwhile, the other Autons capture the Doctor and take him to the now-open Pandorica, which proves to be empty. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and other enemies arrive and reveal that they have formed an alliance and built the Pandorica as a prison for the Doctor, as they believe he is about to destroy the universe. The Doctor pleads that they have made a mistake and the TARDIS, not him, is about to destroy the universe but the aliens refuse to believe that anyone else can pilot the TARDIS.

River frantically manages to hot-wire the TARDIS door, but finds her way blocked by a stone surface. She declares, "I'm sorry, my love," as the TARDIS goes critical and explodes. Rory is still cradling the lifeless Amy. The Pandorica closes on the Doctor, and a dramatic reveal shows explosions surrounding the Earth, which slowly fades to black as silence falls.

Following from the cliffhanger of the previous episode, the Doctor is sealed in the Pandorica, a prison designed for him by his greatest foes and baited by elements of Amy's childhood imagination, while River Song is trapped in the TARDIS as it explodes, triggering the end of the universe. As the episode begins, the Earth, Moon, and what appears to be the Sun are all that remain in a starless black void. In 102 AD, the Auton replica of Rory, having shot Amy, is still holding her lifeless body when a future version of the Doctor, using a Vortex Manipulator, briefly appears and gives Rory his sonic screwdriver, with instructions to open the Pandorica. Rory releases the imprisoned Doctor, who places Amy inside the Pandorica where she will be revived and held in stasis. Rory, ageless due to his Auton nature, stays with the Pandorica, guarding it through nearly two millennia and creating a mythology around the box that survives to the present day.

The Doctor jumps forward in time to 1996, and provides hints to the young Amelia Pond—who has dreams of a star-filled sky—that lead her to the British Museum, where the Pandorica is on display. Amelia's touch opens the Pandorica, releasing her older self. Rory, now a security guard at the museum, arrives just in time to save the Doctor, Amy and Amelia from a fossilized Dalek. After an emotional reunion, the Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to pass his screwdriver to Rory in the past and rescue River from the TARDIS. The group flees through the museum, purused by the Dalek, which the Doctor surmises has been re-activated by the light of the Pandorica. They meet a mortally wounded version of the Doctor from twelve minutes in the future, who whispers something to his past self and dies. The Doctor explains that a fragment of the original, star-filled universe is inside the Pandorica, and if they can transfer it to every point of the collapsing universe simultaneously, they may be able to "reboot" reality. He is then shot by the Dalek, and jumps twelve minutes into the past. Rory and Amy escape, while River confronts the Dalek- which uncharacteristically begs for mercy when told her name.

After jumping back twelve minutes, the Doctor did not die, but instead directed his earlier self to create a diversion, giving the wounded Doctor the opportunity to program the Pandorica to fly into the Sun-like source of light: the TARDIS, exploding simultaneously at every point in space and time. When his companions return, the Doctor explains that once the universe is rebooted, Amy—having lived near the cracks in the universe all her life—will be able to use her memories to restore people who have been erased, and that he himself will be trapped in the void between universes once the cracks close. The Doctor then pilots the Pandorica into the TARDIS explosion, creating a second Big Bang and returning the universe to normal.

The Doctor then finds himself rewinding through his life as an observer. Amy can hear but not see him, and as he passes through the events of "Flesh and Stone", he takes advantage of her closed eyes to tell her to remember what he told her when she was seven years old. Arriving on the day he met Amelia Pond ("The Eleventh Hour"), he finds the young girl asleep outside, waiting for her "raggedy Doctor" to return. The Doctor carries her to bed, and tells her a story about a daft old man who stole—"well, borrowed"—a magic box that was "big and little at the same time. Brand new and ancient. And the bluest blue ever." He then steps into the crack in Amelia's bedroom wall, sealing it completely.

Amy wakes up on 26 June 2010, the day of her wedding, to find she has remembered her mother, father and the human Rory back into existence. During the wedding reception, however, she feels as if she is forgetting something. When she sees River Song's diary, its cover fashioned after the TARDIS, she tearfully recalls the Doctor's story of "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue", causing the Doctor and the TARDIS to be restored. The Doctor joins in the wedding celebration.

After the wedding, the Doctor gives River the Vortex Manipulator to return to her time. River sadly warns him he will soon learn who she truly is, and that it will change everything. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor explains to Amy and Rory that unanswered questions remain about the destruction of the TARDIS and the nature of "the Silence" that will fall, but before they can contemplate that, the Doctor receives a telephone call alerting him to the presence of an escaped Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express in space. Rory and Amy decide to join him, and the three leave on their next adventure.[edit] Continuity

The episode revisits several scenes from earlier in the series. The first scene in the episode mirrors the start of "The Eleventh Hour", except this time the Doctor does not crash into Amelia's garden, instead appearing later to direct her to the museum. Upon the TARDIS's restoration Rory tells Amy's parents that "I was plastic" and that the Doctor was "the stripper at my stag do", the latter event having been seen in "The Vampires of Venice".

As the Doctor rewinds through his life, he sees events which relate to "The Lodger", but which were not shown in that episode. His conversation with Amy during the events of "Flesh and Stone" appeared in that episode, though it was not clear that this was a Doctor from a different timeline. Finally, he arrives in seven-year-old Amelia's house the night she waited for him in "The Eleventh Hour".

Early in the episode, Amy's aunt states that she does not trust Richard Dawkins (who appeared as himself in "The Stolen Earth") due to his support for the existence of stars. When the sonic screwdriver given to Rory and that in the pocket of the Doctor in the Pandorica touch they cause sparks, in a revived-series reference to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

Plot

The TARDIS
lands in Colchester rather than its intended destination,
the fifth moon of Sinda Callista, and the Doctor finds himself stranded
there with Amy left in the TARDIS. Meanwhile, passers-by are seen being
lured into a nearby house by various voices seeking help, from the intercom
at its front door. The door opens and they ascend the staircase to the
first floor, entering the room which lies there; flashing lights are
seen and screams heard emanating from the room.

The Doctor turns up at the house and rents a ground floor room from
the flat's owner, a shy call centre worker called Craig Owens. Although
Craig finds him odd, The Doctor quickly woos him and moves in. The
Doctor tries to blend in his new environment with guidance from Amy,
with whom he still manages to communicate through an earpiece. He also
gets to know Craig who is locked in a platonic relationship with a
colleague called Sophie and tries to manoeuvre them into declaring to
each other. This backfires and Sophie decides to leave for an exotic
destination.

The Doctor has become aware that the first floor room may not be all
it appears to be, as a strange damp patch is spreading on the living
room ceiling, but thinks using his sonic screwdriver might alert
whatever is up there and is instead building a crude apparatus in his
room. His experiences on Earth are punctuated by increasingly frequent
"time-loop" events, in which his own time is separated from those around
him, who are unknowingly involved in repetitive events. This also
affect Amy in the TARDIS.

Craig touches the damp patch on his ceiling and is seriously
poisoned. The Doctor revives him and goes to replace him at work while
he recovers. Craig, however, far from being grateful, becomes jealous of
the increasingly popular Doctor, since Sophie in particular has
expressed enthusiasm, and tells the Doctor to leave the house, throwing
his £3000 deposit back at him. While the two quarrel, Sophie turns up at
the house and gets called upstairs by the voice from the first floor
room. To save time, the Doctor reveals to Craig who he is and what he is
doing... by head-butting him. Craig is overwhelmed by all the
information, but the two hear screams upstairs and rush to intervene.
Spotting Sophie's set of keys on the door, they realise that she is the
one in danger. Amy meanwhile, having studied the house's plans in the
TARDIS's database informs them that the building is supposed to be only
one storey tall.

The Doctor and Craig enter the "upstairs flat" to save Sophie and
discover that someone has been trying to build a TARDIS, which is now
trapped on Earth and is disguised by a perception filter. Its pilot is
an emergency AI hologram who is able to appear in the form of the
various victims it has attracted, as well as Craig's seldom-seen
neighbour.

After the Doctor and Craig prevent Sophie from being forced to
activate the ship's console, the hologram informs the Doctor that as the
ship has crashed and the crew was killed, it has rebuilt itself and
attempted to fly away by luring in humans to act as pilots. However the
human minds weren't sufficient and burned out, leaving only husks.
Recognising the Doctor as a suitable pilot, the ship tries to pull him
in. Knowing he cannot pilot the ship safely and he would destroy the
entire solar system in the process, the Doctor realises that the ship
had only lured in people who wanted to escape or leave somewhere, which
is why it hadn't attempted to lure Craig, or Sophie, until the Doctor
motivated her to leave. After finally admitting their love for each
other, both Craig and Sophie touch the panel's activator, causing the
engines to shut down and the ship to implode. The Doctor, Craig and
Sophie escape in time to see the top floor of the house turn into a
spaceship which then disappears.

Afterwards, the Doctor says his goodbyes to Craig and Sophie, who
give him his set of keys to the flat as a parting gift. Back in the
TARDIS the Doctor travels back in time a week and instructs Amy to leave
the note in the newsagent's that directed him to Craig's flat in the
first place. However, whilst rooting in the pocket of his discarded
blazer for a pen, Amy discovers the ring Rory had given her before he
was erased from time and becomes visibly unsettled. The crack from her bedroom appears
once again, this time in the wall behind Craig's fridge, and glows
ominously.

The Doctor playing football is the second time he has shown
exceptional skill when playing a sport, entering a team at the last
minute. In Black Orchid, the Fifth
Doctor plays a cricket match and proves to be equally skilled with
both bat and ball.

Reception

Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph, assessed the episode as "a
delight", "thoroughly enjoyable (and) often amusing". In particular he
praised Corden and Haggard for avoiding the usual "cliches of romcom", and Smith's portrayal of The
Doctor as almost but not-quite human. He expressed some disappointment
that the origin of the lurking time machine was not explained.[5]

Synopsis

During a visit to an art gallery with Amy, the Doctor's interest is caught by a painting of a church by Vincent van Gogh: there's a face in the window of the church –
a curious, shadowed creepy face with a beak and nasty eyes. The Doctor
is worried, and is sure he has seen the face somewhere before. There is
only one thing for it: a trip in the TARDIS back to 1890, so the
Doctor can find out from the artist himself.

Plot

The
Doctor and Amy looking at van Gogh's painting of the Church at Auvers.

In a field of wheat, something begins running through it, scaring the
crows away, while an artist paints the scene. The same painting, years
later, hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A
man, Dr.
Black, in glasses and a bowtie tells a group of people that the
painting is one of van Gogh's last paintings and that the last few months of his
life were the most astonishing months of his artistic outpouring. As he
compares van Gogh to Shakespeare, the Doctor and Amy
pass behind him, admiring the pieces of art around them.

Amy thanks the Doctor for bringing her to the museum and asks why
he is being so nice to her. The Doctor defends himself and Amy says
that she was only joking, asking why he was being so serious. Dr. Black
tells the group the value of van Gogh's work today, tens of millions,
and compares it with the value of it when van Gogh died, the value of a
sofa and some chairs.

A child says "He's the doctor." Thinking it is him, the Doctor
turns around, only to discover the children are looking at a picture of
van Gogh's doctor. Amy grabs the Doctor's hand and pulls him towards a
painting of a church. As the Doctor admires the work, he notices
something in the window of the church. Amy asks if it is a face and the
Doctor tells her that it is, and that it isn't a nice face.

The Doctor approaches Dr. Black, interrupting his talk and asks
him when the painting was painted, asking him to skip a long speech. Dr.
Black tells him that it was probably between the first and third of
June in 1890. The Doctor thanks him, then the two men compliment each
others bow ties. The Doctor then grabs Amy's hand and pulls her away.
She asks about looking at the rest of the paintings, but he shoves her
ahead, telling her that it is a matter of life and death, and that they
must talk to Vincent van Gogh.

The TARDIS materializes and the Doctor and
Amy exit. The Doctor tells Amy the plan, to find van Gogh, wait for him
to take them to the church, then defeat the monster. Amy exclaims that
it will be easy, but the Doctor disagrees. He says that van Gogh will
probably be in the local café and describes it. Amy flicks through her
van Gogh guide and finds a painting of it. The Doctor tells her that
that painting is the one, then Amy points out that the real café is
right infront of them.

The Doctor approaches the owner and asks about Vincent van Gogh.
The owner disappears inside, so the Doctor asks the waitresses. The
waitresses tell the Doctor and Amy that van Gogh is a mad drunk who
never pays his bills. The Doctor tells them he's a good painter and the
two women just laugh at him.

As the Doctor sits at a table, a man follows the owner out of the
café and tries to bargain with him, one painting for a drink. The
Doctor points to the man and mouths to Amy that he is van Gogh. The
owner says that the painting is no good, and tells van Gogh to either
pay for drinks or get out. The Doctor offers to either pay for van
Gogh's drink or to buy the painting, to which van Gogh asks who the
Doctor is. The Doctor tells him that he is new in town, to which van
Gogh tells him three things; that he pays for his own drinks, that
no-one buys his paintings lest they be laughed out of town and that Amy
is cute, but the Doctor should not interfere.

Van Gogh returns to bargaining with the owner who still refuses
to give him a drink, until Amy interferes and tells the two to shut up.
She tells the owner that she will buy a bottle of wine, and will share
it with whomever she wishes, looking at van Gogh. The owner agrees and
follows Amy inside.

Inside, the Doctor and Amy talk with van Gogh. Van Gogh asks about Amy's
accent and whether she comes from Holland. She replies "no" while the
Doctor replies "yes" at the same time. The Doctor introduces himself
properly as "the Doctor", which causes van Gogh to believe that he is a
doctor sent by his brother to help him with his mental state. The Doctor
laughs at the notion and points to a painting beside van Gogh. Amy says
that it is one of her favourites, to which van Gogh tells her she's
never seen it before. She covers up her mistake and van Gogh comments on
her hair colour, so she comments on his.

Vincent
and Amy at the Café.

The Doctor interrupts and asks Vincent if he has painted any churches
lately and van Gogh tells him that he has been thinking about painting
one church. The Doctor says that is good news, when someone screams, the
Doctor says that that is not good news.

Out in the street, the three find a girl who has been killed. The
mother of the girl pushes her way through, then blames Vincent for her
daughter's death. She and some of the crowd throw stones at Vincent, so
the Doctor, Amy and Vincent leave immediately. The Doctor asks Vincent
if a similar murder has happened before. Vincent tells him that there
was one a week ago and the Doctor says he thought so. He tells Vincent
that he must get home. Vincent asks where the Doctor and Amy are
staying, which the Doctor takes as an invite to stay with him. Amy
nervously laughs and follows the Doctor, Vincent in tail of the two.

Outside Vincent's home, the Doctor comments on the dark and the
starry night. Van Gogh says that Amy and the Doctor will be alright to
stay with him for one night, and one night only. Amy exclaims that they
will be staying with him and the Doctor tells her until he paints the
church.

Inside, van Gogh lights a lamp and apologizes about the
"clutter", saying he must really clear it out. Vincent offers coffee and
after seeing Vincent put coffee on one of his works, the Doctor tells
him to be careful with his work and that they are precious. Vincent
disagrees with the Doctor, but Amy tells Vincent that they are precious
to her. The Doctor asks about the church, to which Vincent asks about
his obsession with it. The Doctor asks about Vincent, and Vincent tells
him that it seems to him the world offers much more than the normal eye
can see. The Doctor agrees with him, glancing at Amy.

Soon after, Vincent wildly talks about colours and how he can
hear them, and how he thinks. The Doctor stares at Vincent saying that
he believes he has had enough coffee. The Doctor asks where Amy is and a
scream comes from outside.

Vincent and the Doctor rush outside and find Amy on the ground,
shaken, but not injured. The Doctor says not to worry that the attacker
has gone, but Vincent screams and runs to get a fork. The Doctor tries
to calm Vincent down, but Vincent runs towards them. Amy and the Doctor
move to the side and van Gogh tells them to run. The Doctor agrees and
tells Amy that Vincent is having a fit. The Doctor again tries to calm
Vincent down, telling him that it is only him there, when something
large knocks him off his feet. Amy shouts that she cannot see anything
and asks what it is. The Doctor agrees that her question is good. He
gets up and grabs a stick, telling Vincent he will help him fight it.
Vincent asks the Doctor if he can see the creature too, to which the
Doctor says he can, kind of, and finally not. The Doctor then gets hit
again and thrown over a table, landing on his back. Vincent tells the
Doctor that he couldn't see the creature. The Doctor returns to where
the creature was, swinging his stick around, while Vincent attacks the
creature and fends it off. Both Vincent and Amy watch as the Doctor
continues to fight nothing, swinging his stick around. Vincent tells the
Doctor that the creature has gone, to which the Doctor stops.

The three return inside. The Doctor says that the creature was
invisible, and asks Vincent what it looked like. Vincet says he'll show
them and begins to paint over one of his paintings, much to the Doctor
and Amy's horror. After he has finished, the Doctor takes the painting
from van Gogh and gives Amy instructions to keep Vincent safe. Amy
protests the Doctor going outside as it is dangerous, but the Doctor
decides to still go, telling them he'll be back before they can say
"where's he got to now?" The Doctor leaves and Amy turns back to
Vincent. The Doctor screams "not that fast" to keep the two on their
toes and says he'll be pretty fast, then leaves.

The Doctor walks down the alleyways, seemingly being followed by the
creature, but reaches the TARDIS before he comes to any danger. Inside,
he drags a chest from one of the alcoves, talking to a specific item. He
apologizes to the item, saying he thought it was just a useless,
embarrassing present from his godmother, who had two heads and bad
breath, on both the heads. He pulls out a machine attached to a mirror and
puts it up on the TARDIS console. He links it up to the TARDIS and
sticks his tongue out at it. The machine identifies the Doctor as
"Doctor" and his home planet as Gallifrey
and prints a copy out on the console's typewriter, including pictures
of the first and second
incarnations. The Doctor then shows Vincent's drawing of the creature
to the mirror in order to identify it. The machine first identifies it
as a parrot, then a polar bear, both of which the Doctor dismisses. He
then complains that the impressionists are not accurate enough and that
it wouldn't happen with one of the "proper" painters, but then
apologizes to Vincent. He says that Vincent will have to draw something
better and throws the painting away behind him.

The
Doctor attempting to identify the 'invisible monster'.

Leaving the TARDIS, now day, the Doctor alters the machine. The
creature appears behind the Doctor, appearing in the mirror. The
machine's "match" noise sounds and the Doctor says that there may be a
time delay, but the machine always gets it in the end, not noticing the
actual creature behind him. The Doctor reads the details on the
creature, a Krafayis, before noticing that it is directly
behind him. The Doctor begins to run and hides behind a corner. He uses
the mirror to see the creature charging towards him, before running
again. He tries to slow the creature by blocking its path, and the
creature hits its head on an archway. The Doctor hides behind another
corner and sees the creature fleeing. He breathes a sigh of relief,
before turning the corner and seeing Amy. Both of them scream and the
Doctor says that she scared the living daylights out of him. Amy
apologizes and says that she was bored of Vincent's snoring.

The Doctor enters Vincent's room and opens the windows, letting in a
flood of light and waking Vincent up. Vincet gets up as the Doctor
leaves the room, telling Vincent that Amy brought him a present. Amy
tells him she brought the present for saving her the previous night.
Vincent looks out to see the outside surrounded by sunflowers. Amy
suggests he paint the flowers, but Vincent says that they are not his
favourite flower, much to the surprise of Amy and the Doctor. Vincent
explains that he finds them complex, half-living and half-dying, a
little disgusting, but a challenge. The Doctor tells Vincent he is sure
he will rise to the challenge.

Amy
amidst the sunflowers.

The Doctor shows Vincent a picture of the Krafayis, explaining how
the species travels in space as a pack and that they are a brutal race;
if one falls behind, the rest of the pack do not return for it. He
explains that this particular one has been left behind, and like the
other Krafayis abandoned across the universe, it will kill without mercy
until killed, which they usually are not, given their invisibility. The
Doctor tells Vincent that they are in a unique position of being able
to stop this one if Vincent paints the church. Vincent asks about the
monster, but the Doctor tells him that if he paints the church, the
monster will come. Vincent agrees and the Doctor tells him that he and
Amy will be no longer bothering him by the next day and will be gone.
After Vincent has left the room, the Doctor tells Amy that taking
Vincent is risky. Amy asks if it is riskier than normal. The Doctor
checks to see that Vincent is not listening and tells Amy that if
Vincent is killed, half the pictures in the Musée d'Orsay will disappear
and that it will be their fault.

The Doctor knocks on Vincent's door and enters. He finds Vincent
on his bed crying. The Doctor asks if he can help. Vincent tells the
Doctor that he and Amy will leave as everyone always leaves him, that he
will be left with an empty heart and no hope. The Doctor tells Vincent
that his experience is that there is always hope, but Vincent tells him
that he does not have a full experience and that he knows it will not
end well. The Doctor tries to console him, but Vincent gets angry and
tells him to get out. The Doctor leaves.

Amy asks the Doctor what is happening and the Doctor explains how
delicate Vincent is, that he will eventually shoot himself, and that is
why they should leave. After looking at some of Vincent's paintings,
the Doctor says that he and Amy must go to the church and hope that the
Krafayis still turns up. Before they can leave, Vincent appears at the
door, fully clothed and ready to go, selecting a paintbrush.

Amy, walking arm in arm with Vincent, tells him that she is sorry
he is sad. He tells her that the moods he has last for weeks or even
months, but that he can soldier on if she can. She tells him that she is
not soldiering on but he says to her that he can hear the song of her
sadness and points out that she is crying. He tells Amy that he
understands but Amy replies, telling him that she does not. The Doctor,
having listened to the conversation interrupts and proposes a plan.
Vincent says that they will fight the creature, but the Doctor explains
that it needs to be more developed, that he needs to be able to see the
creature as well. Amy asks how the Doctor is supposed to see the
monster, to which he replies that he has the answer inside a box he is
carrying, giving praise to his godmother.

Further up the road, the three see the funeral of the girl who
was killed the previous night. They stand at the side of the road,
Vincent having taken his hat off in respect, as the coffin passes with
sunflowers on top. Amy asks the Doctor if he has a plan, to which he
tells her that he doesn't, but something similarly greater.

Vincent sets up his easle as the Doctor makes sure that he will
be told when the creature appears. Vincent tells the Doctor that he is
mad and not stupid. The Doctor begins to explain that he may not
actually be mad, just deeply depressed, but Vincent tells him to shush,
and that he is working.

As Vincent paints, the Doctor talks about watching Michaelangelo
painting the Sistine Chaple, and how he winged because he was afraid of
heights but Amy tells him to shush. Later he moves on to Picasso, and how
he tried to advise him on his paintings. Much later, the Doctor, bored,
asks if time normally passes really slowly and in the correct order. He
stands up and tells Amy and Vincent that he can't stand an unpunctual
alien attack. Amy asks if he is nervous, when Vincent tells the two that
the monster is now at the window.

The Doctor tells Amy and Vincent that he is going in, so Vincent
tells him that he is going in too. The Doctor stresses that Vincent is
Vincent van Gogh, and that he is not going in. Vincent protests that the
Doctor is not armed, but the Doctor tells him that he is, with
overconfidence, the machine and a small screwdriver. The Doctor says that all he needs to
do is find the correct prozac setting to stun the creature. He gives
Amy one simple instruction, not to follow him and signals to Vincent to
watch her. Amy agrees and the Doctor heads towards the church. Vincent
leans in towards Amy and asks if she will follow him, and she tells him
that she will. Vincent then tells Amy that he loves her.

Just outside the chapel, the Doctor opens his box and takes out
the machine. He puts it on and before heading into the chapel, looks at a
carving above the door, a carving of an angel slaying a dragon. Inside,
the Doctor looks around for the Krafayis. Outside, Amy asks Vincent if
the Krafayis has moved. Vincent tells her that it hasn't, but suddenly
tells her that it has turned around. After approaching the window where
the Krafayis was, the Doctor believes the creature has moved. Suddenly, a
hand knocks the Doctor flying. Amy and Vincent hear the crash, look at
each other and head inside to help the Doctor. The Doctor recovers from
his fall and tries to stun the Krafayis. He runs towards a room when he
bumps into Amy. The two of them hide in a confessions box to hide. While
inside, the Doctor tells Amy to breath quieter. Amy says that she
cannot, then believes that it has walked past them. Then the Krafayis
begins attacking the confessions box, and the Doctor compliments its
excellent hearing.

Vincent then calls on the monster, fighting it with a chair,
while telling Amy and the Doctor to get behind him. The Doctor, twice,
tries to stun the Krafayis again but is unsuccessful and on the second
attempt, the Krafayis actually seems to enjoy it. Vincent tells the
Doctor to duck as the creature takes a swipe at him, then to move to his
left. However, because of miscommunication, left being Vincent's left
and not the Doctor's, the Doctor is hit by the monster against a wall.
The Doctor suggests that they run like crazy and regroup, so Amy chooses
the nearest room to hide in. They get in the room and attempt to close
the door until the creature blocks it with its foot. Vincent, however,
stands on the foot and the creature retreats.

The Doctor begins to tell Amy and Vincent his plan, but
accidentally calls Vincent, Rory. When Amy asks what the plan is, the
Doctor tells her that the only plan he is sure of his that he will only
use his sonic screwdriver to screw in screws in future. Vincent tells
Amy and the Doctor to give him a second and that he will be back. The
Doctor considers talking to the Krafayis and hearing his side of the
story. Although he thinks the Krafayis may not be in the mood for it,
the Doctor but tries anyway. The Doctor explains to the creature that he
understands that it is trapped on the planet and alone, and tells it
that he is also alone. Suddenly, the window behind them smashes open and
the invisible creature jumps through.

Vincent returns with his easle, holding the feet up, the spikes
being used as a weapon. The Doctor asks what it is doing and is told it
is feeling it's way around the room. The Doctor calls himself stupid and
comments that he is getting old. The Doctor figures out that the
Krafayis is blind and raises his voice when mentioning the fact it has
perfect hearing. Vincent then tells them that it is now charging towards
them. Vincent runs forward as the creature charges, telling the Doctor
and Amy to get back. The creature is stabbed by the easle, and Vincent
is sent hanging in the air. As the creature falls to the ground, Vincent
lets go of the easle and lands on his feet.

Vincent tells the Doctor that he didn't mean to kill the
creature, and the Doctor comforts it as it dies. He makes out that the
creature says that it is afraid and the Doctor tells it not to be while
stroking it. Vincent compares the Krafayis to humans who lash out when
they are frightened, much like those in the town that scream at him and
the children who throw stones at him. The Doctor then says that
sometimes winning is no fun at all.

Amy, Vincent and the Doctor lie in a field and hold hands. Vincent asks
the other two to see the world as he does, describing the night sky. The
Doctor tells him that he has seen nothing as wonderful as what Vincent
has. Vincent tells the Doctor and Amy that he will miss them when they
are gone.

The
Doctor, Vincent and Amy gazing up at the 'Starry Night'

The next morning, Vincent tries to give the Doctor a self portrait as
a gift, but the Doctor refuses (though Vincent isn't surprised).
Vincent hugs Amy who tells him to be good and kind to himself and to
trim his beard before next kissing someone. Vincent also tells Amy that
if she tires of the Doctor, she should return and they could have
children together. Vincent then tells the Doctor that he thinks he might
not do as well on his own than when he was with him. They embrace in a
hug, then Amy and the Doctor leave.

Outside, the Doctor asks Amy if she is thinking what he is
thinking. She replies telling him she wants food before they leave, not
exactly what the Doctor was thinking. The Doctor then calls Vincent, who
hangs out a window, and tells him he has something to show him and to
tidy himself up first.

The Doctor takes Vincent to a poster covered TARDIS and lets him
inside. Vincent then peers out of the TARDIS and feels the outside walls
before going back in and asking how he is crazy and the Doctor and Amy
are sane. The Doctor enters and takes Vincent's hat off him, placing it
on the hatstand. Amy closes the door and they head to the console.
Vincent asks what all of the buttons do and the Doctor explains several
of them; one which plays soothing music, one which makes a large noise
and one which makes everything shake. Vincent asks what a button does
and the Doctor lunges forward to stop Vincent from pressing it, telling
him that it is the Friction Contrafibulator. Then Vincent asks what
another button does, to which the Doctor tells him that it is ketchup,
then points to another which he calls mustard.

Vincent asks them back to the café, but the Doctor tells him that
he wishes to show him something first. In Paris 2010, outside the Musée
d'Orsay, the last few posters burn off the TARDIS. Amy, Vincent and the
Doctor step outside and head into the museum, the Doctor explaining
when and where they are.

The three enter the van Gogh exhibition. Vincent looks around at his
work in awe at the number of people looking at them. The Doctor then
asks Dr. Black to tell him where van Gogh stands in the importance of
the history of art. Amy positions Vincent behind Dr. Black so he can
hear all the positive things he thinks of him; that he is the finest
painter of them all, the most popular painter who managed to transform
his pain into beauty, that he was not only the world's greatest artist
but also one of the greatest men of all time.

Vincent
in the Musée d'Orsay

At hearing these words, Vincent begins to cry, but when the Doctor
asks if it is too much, he replies that they are tears of joy. Vincent
then kisses, hugs and thanks Dr. Black, apologizing about his beard
after. Dr. Black then walks away, but pauses for a moment to ponder. He
looks back and then dismisses the thought.

The Doctor returns Vincent to his own place and time. Vincent
tells the Doctor that he will be a new man and the Doctor tells Vincent
that it has been an honour. Amy then hugs Vincent as he jokes about her
marital status, to which Amy tells him she in not the marrying kind. The
TARDIS departs and Vincent walks off.

Vincent's
dedication of Sunflowers for Amy.

Amy and the
Doctor return to the Musée d'Orsay, Amy believing that there will be
hundreds more paintings, but the Doctor is doubtful. In the gallery, Amy
finds no new paintings and hears Dr. Black still saying that he
commited suicide at age 37. Amy thinks that they didn't make a
difference to Vincent's life at all, but the Doctor explains to her that
although good things can't remove the bad things, the bad things can't
spoil the good things, and that they certainly added a large amount of
good things to Vincent's life. The Doctor also shows Amy that they did
make a couple of minor changes, such as the non-existance of the evil
face in the church window.

As Amy walks away, she walks towards another painting, one of
sunflowers, which she sees is dedicated in her name. She tells the
Doctor that if they had been married, their children would have had very
red hair. The Doctor calls them the "Ultimate Ginger". Amy smiles at
him and says the "Ultimate Ginge". The two chuckle together as Amy tears
up.

Not
every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a
credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required.
The information above is based solely on observations of the actual
end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information
from IMDB or other sources.

References

The episode makes numerous direct and indirect references to van
Gogh's most famous works, though artistic liberty was taken in regard
to their chronology and the locations in which they were painted. While
the setting for the episode was ostensibly Auvers-Sur-Oise, the last
place of residence and resting place of van Gogh, where he painted Church
at Auvers, inspiration for the set decoration of his home and the
cafe he frequented (or rather was frequently thrown out of), came
from works he previously produced while living in Arles several years
before (Bedroom in Arles, Cafe Terrance at Night). Also,
while the episode suggested Amy Pond inspired van Gogh to paint
sunflowers, particularly Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers,
to which he then 'dedicated' to her, they were, in fact, painted in
1887 and 1888.

The Doctor expresses frustration with van Gogh's
'impressionist' style when attempting to identify the invisible monster
(though van Gogh is considered to be post-Impressionist by art
historians), suggesting that this would "never happen with Gainsborough,
one of those proper painters." While this suggests the Doctor's
affinity for some notion of 'scientific accuracy' over emotive artistic
expression, he later humbly tells Vincent that while he has seen many
things, "you are right, nothing quite as wonderful as the things you
see."

Story notes

The episode was incorrectly entitled, Lend Me Your Ear.
However, no mention or reference was made in the episode regarding van
Gogh's ear at all.

Unlike most stories in this series, this story focuses much
more on characters than plot, and has hints and references to van Gogh's
depression and suicide, something the series has not explored very much
before. In fact, a message and phone number for the 'BBC Action Line'
was broadcast following the 'Next Time' trail, for those wanting more
information on 'issues raised in this program.'

Pictures of the First and Second Doctors are printed on the
TARDIS' typewriter.

This is the second story in the series to lack any cracks,
silence, or other foreshadowing of the series' finale (the first being Amy's
Choice). However, it does tie in to Rory's death
and establishes that, on some level, Amy is aware he has died.

Although originally believed to be standalone, spoilers make
this story involved with the series arc, some mentioning van Gogh's
paintings, one of which is Dr. Gatchet, relating to the finale. Dr.
Gatchet is supposed to be appearing in the mentioned episode. Others
include van Gogh communicating a disturbing prophecy to the Doctor in
the finale through one of his paintings, and a van Gogh reference in DW: The
Lodger.

Numerous positive or affirmative references were made in the
episode to van Gogh and Amy's hair colour, perhaps in a conscious effort
to address the accusation by some viewers of the program being
'anti-ginger' (the so-called 'ginger' controversy).

The song used for the final scenes is "Chances" by Athlete.

Amy attempting to get Vincent to paint 'The Sunflowers' is
similar to Rose trying to get Queen Victoria to say, "I am not amused." (DW: Tooth and Claw)

Ratings

Filming locations

Roald Dahl Plass [3],
which is supposed to double for the Musée d'Orsay in Paris

Rumours

It was rumoured that either the Timoreen, the Ha'rik or the
Skarkish will appear. The monster was a Krafayis.

It was rumoured that Vincent van Gogh will stab a yellow
monster. He stabbed the Krafayis, the monster was pale yellow.

Howard Lee plays a character called "Dr. Gachet" [4].
Dr. Gachet was van Gogh's real doctor, who nursed him during his final
years. He was mentioned but he was not actually in the episode.

Nighy plays a van Gogh expert, with similar fashion tastes to
the Doctor himself. This turned out also true. He also wore a bowtie.

Steven Moffat stated in a recent interview that the
controversial topic of the regeneration limit for Time Lords will be
"addressed in a very, very cheeky way by an old friend of mine" at some
point in Series 5. [5]
As the "old friend" could very well be Richard Curtis, the issue might
be addressed in this episode. This turned out to be false for this
episode, but it could happen in later episodes with Alex Kingston's
character River Song addressing the subject, as Steven Moffatt created
her character.

As a Vincent van Gogh painting will feature in the events of "The Pandorica Opens", it was likely that this story
would bring more developments to the main story arc of the series. [6]This was not the case, with the episode being more or less a
stand-alone story, but apparently the finale will still feature a van
Gogh painting in some way. This connection may be illuminated in "The
Lodger", as a pamphlet for a van Gogh exhibit can be seen on Craig's
fridge in the trailer. Although, the Doctor does take a van Gogh
painting inside the TARDIS trying to identify the Krafayis, he pitches
the painting over his shoulder into the TARDIS. Perhaps that painting is
the one to carry a message 1,000 years into the future.

It was rumoured that Vincent will propose to Amy or ask the
Doctor to travel with them because in the preview clips, he shows a
large interest in Amy and the Doctor and even tells Amy that he loves
her. This turned out true.

Production errors

When running through the streets with his mirror, the Doctor
screams "Ahh", but his mouth is not synced with his screaming.

For most of the episode, Amy is wearing tights. During the
church scene, when van Gogh starts painting the Church, they've gone.
Later on when the group are hiding from the monster, she's wearing them
again, as was the case with the previous episode.

When in the chapel looking for the monster, the Doctor switches
the mirror from his left to right side while holding his sonic
screwdriver. For each change, the camera angle also changes, and the
sonic screwdriver changes from being in closed mode and extended mode.

At the beginning, when looking at the painting of the church,
the Doctor scratches his head. When the camera is behind the Doctor, he
uses his right hand but when the camera cuts to in front of him, he is
using his left hand.

The Doctor mentions that he had a godmother with two heads.
Before his ninth regeneration, he declared that he might
have ended up with two heads. (DW: The Parting of the Ways) Although it seemed
like a joke at the time, this statement suggests that a regeneration
actually could result in the creation of an extra head. It may also be a
reference to the Aplans. (DW: The Time of Angels)

Amy mentions that the Doctor took her to Arcadia.
The planet was featured in NA: Deceit, and the "fall of Arcadia" was mentioned
as one of the events of the Time War in DW: Doomsday.

The Doctor mentions Rory,
to which Amy asks "who?" Amy also says that the Doctor is being extra
kind to her, feeling guilty about Rory's erasure. Van Gogh also sees
that Amy is crying, although she doesn't know why; he theorises that she
has lost someone. After receiving a half-joking marriage proposal from
Vincent, Amy tells him that she's "not the marrying kind". (DW: Cold
Blood).

The Doctor, Amy and Rory land in the small Welsh village of Cwmtaff in 2020, as opposed to their intended destination of Rio de Janeiro. They encounter a mining operation, led by Doctor Nasreen Chaudry, studying minerals deep in the earth that have not been seen for over 20 million years. Nasreen is accompanied by a local, Tony Mack, whose daughter and grandson, Ambrose and Elliot, are examining the disappearance of bodies from underground at the graveyard of a nearby church. An earth tremor causes the ground to open and send Tony and Amy falling into it; Tony is rescued but Amy is pulled under by unknown forces. The Doctor surmises the minerals form a bio-reactive defense system that was triggered by the drilling operation. The group is soon alerted to the presence of three life forms traveling up the drilling shaft from 21 kilometres below the earth, and they barricade themselves in the church. The Doctor explains Amy's disappearance to Rory and assures him he will get her back.

The three beings turn out to be reptilian humanoids, and in a scuffle, they capture Elliot and strike Tony with a venomous forked tongue; the Doctor and the group are able to subdue one of the beings while the other two retreat with Elliot back into the earth. The Doctor realises the beings are a new form of Silurians, and that they have relented in their attack since both side hold a hostage. The captured Silurian calls herself Alaya, a member of the warrior caste awoken by the intrusion of the drill. Alaya believes, as with all the other Silurians, that the Earth still belongs to them and will defeat humanity eventually. Tony, suffering from the effects of the venom, believes they should dissect Alaya, but the Doctor warns that it will be seen as an act of war. The Doctor decides to travel in the TARDIS down the drilling shaft to talk to the rest of the Silurians and work out a truce, with Narseen desiring to come along.

Amy awakens to find herself strapped to an examining table, near to where Ambrose's husband Mo is similar ensnared. Mo apologizes to Amy that the Silurians intended to vivisect them. The Doctor and Nasreen descend in the TARDIS, where the Doctor explains the Silurians and that he only expects to encounter a small number of the aliens. The show ends on a cliffhanger as the Doctor and Nasreen are surprised to find an immense Silurian civilisation stretching out for miles in the caverns below the earth.

This second part starts with the Doctor and Nasreen walking along a bridge in the Silurian civilisation, as the Doctor marvels at the technological advances they have made since he last met them. They find themselves in a corridor covered with plants long thought extinct, and find an entrance. As soon as they walk through it, an alarm goes off and the pair are inevitably captured by the Silurian soldiers where they are taken to the same lab Amy and Mo are in. Amy is about to be dissected by the Silurian doctor Malohkeh, but he is called off moments before doing so by the alarm triggered by the Doctor and Nasreen.

Malohkeh had used a palm-sized device to lock Amy's hands into the cuffs and had placed it in his pocket. But while he is distracted by the alarm, Amy pickpockets him and steals the device. Amy quickly unlocks the clamps around her arms and frees Mo. As they walk around trying to find a way out, they stumble upon a chamber where the Silurians are keeping Elliot alive, but sedated, for observation. Mo, Elliot's father, is enraged and determines they need to find weapons to protect themselves and later get his son out. They then find two contiguous chambers, each with a Silurian warrior inside, although they appear to be immobile. Amy deduces that they are hibernation pods, with each warrior standing on a transport disc that can take them to the surface. Since they don't know how to work the transport discs, they take the hibernating Silurians' weapons instead to have something to fight with while looking for another exit.

In the church, while the group are awaiting the Doctor's and Nasreen's return, Ambrose notices her father's injury from Alaya's sting, so she goes to Alaya's room and implores her to give her the cure. Alaya responds that she has no desire nor need to tell her. Angered, Ambrose picks up a stun gun to pretend to threaten Alaya. However, Alaya begins taunting her by asking her where her son is, and how she is too much of a coward to use the stun gun even to protect her family. Angered and worried about her family, Ambrose does stun her, at first lightly to get the information, but when Alaya still refuses, she shoves the stun gun into her stomach with greater strength, killing her. The others run in, shocked, for keeping Alaya alive was probably the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nasreen are clamped onto the operating tables, where Nasreen is knocked unconscious. The Doctor is kept awake as the Silurians attempt to 'decontaminate' him for analysis. The Doctor, however, is unusually finding the decontamination painful, and yells out in between cringing at Malohkeh that he is not human. After Malohkeh checks and notices the Doctor's two hearts, he turns the machine off and uses a rod similar to the Doctor's sonic Screwdriver to wake up Nasreen. Another Silurian, Restac, Alaya's sister and the Silurians' military commander, enters, however, and is adamant that they be destroyed. She takes the Doctor and Nasreen to a conference room, which turns out to be the Silurian court, and informs them they will be executed. On the way, the Doctor explains some of the Silurians' history: that they went into hibernation when their astronomers predicted a solar catastrophe approaching Earth. When the Silurians ask how he knows so much about them, the Doctor explains he has encountered their kind before. Initially delighted that others of their species survived, the Doctor angers them by explaining humans wiped out those who woke before. Restac views such an act as justification to destroy humanity.

Just as Restac is about to fire, Amy and Mo arrive, armed with the Silurian guns. They are soon overwhelmed by the dozens of Silurian guards, however, and are about to be executed as well. Back at the church, Rory and the gang have wrapped Alaya's body in an orange afghan, when a screen on an unplugged computer turns on, revealing Restac who shows them the others as hostages. The Doctor reminds Rory that if they bring Alaya back, the Silurians will leave them alone, but Restac refuses and announces that the first to be executed will be Amy, aiming her gun as the screen switches off completely, leaving Rory in shock. Malohkeh attempts to reason with Restac as he believes that the Silurians and humans are compatible with each other and so war is unnecessary; however, she simply orders him to leave. Nevertheless, Amy manages to survive because Eldane, a Silurian above Restac in rank, arrives after being fetched by Malohkeh and orders for them to be untied.

The Doctor proposes that the Silurians hold talks, with Amy and Nasreen as the human race's representatives, to try to figure out a peaceful way for the Earth to be shared between the species. They are making progress, as Amy suggests that certain areas of the planet that are inhospitable to humans could work for the Silurians. In exchange, Eldane proposes that all Silurian technology can be used to both species' benefit. As they have found common ground, Eldane is open to the idea of exchanging them for Alaya, so they open another communication link to Rory and the others in the church. They agree to bring them down to the Silurians' habitat for the exchange, and it appears as if it will all work out. Meanwhile, Restac and a number of troops storm into Malohkeh's lab and execute him for betraying her cause.

After the communications link is closed, Ambrose, still distrustful of the Silurians and worried because Alaya is in fact dead, decides that before going down, they should set the drill to go off in 15 minutes, which would destroy all oxygen in the Silurians' habitat. As the group arrive with Alaya's corpse, Restac returns with many more warriors, who she has woken up from hibernation, intending to stage a coup. When she sees that Alaya, her sister, is dead, Restac loses control and orders her warriors to kill all the humans, starting with Ambrose. As the Silurians open fire, the Doctor deters them by breaking down their weapons with the sonic screwdriver, as all the humans and Eldane lock themselves in the lab. There, they realise that they have very little time before the drill impacts the surface of the Silurians' habitat and they all die. The Doctor decides that they should use the Silurian technology to send an energy pulse through the tunnel network to destroy the drill before it demolishes the Silurian civilisation. However, doing so would cause an underground collapse, so they will need to escape before the drill is destroyed. They need to get from the lab to where the Doctor and Nasreen left the TARDIS, but the Silurian army is blocking the way. Eldane tells them that he can stall the army by activating 'toxic fumigation'; a safety system that warns everyone to return to hibernation before a toxic gas is released, for only those stubborn and violent enough to follow Restac will die. The Doctor approaches Eldane and promises that in a thousand years, the Silurians and humans should attempt living together once again, for he will ensure that the humans are the best they can be by then. He approaches Elliot and asks him to create a myth, story or religion that can inform all coming human generations of the Silurians and how they can cohabitate peacefully one day in order to promote this plan.

As the safety system is triggered, Tony yells out in pain. Alaya had previously suggested that he should have been dead soon after she attacked him, but the Doctor finds that instead of killing him, the spit from Alaya has triggered a mutation. The Ambassador tells them that Tony can be put in a chamber to stop the infection, but the process takes much longer than the 15 minutes they have before the drill impacts. To this, Tony responds that he will stay behind, and everybody else clamors to get to the TARDIS. The Doctor realises Nasreen is not moving, as she informs him she will stay behind with Tony, to study the Earth and help the Silurians co-operate with mankind when the time comes. As the Doctor is taking so long, Amy returns to get him, prompting Rory to wait for Amy and the Doctor as well.

Ambrose, Mo and Elliot quickly get onto the TARDIS, but before Amy, Rory and the Doctor go in, they all notice a crack in the wall, just like that in Amy's bedroom as a child. The Doctor surmised that the cracks in the universe must have been formed by an explosion and insists on reaching into the other side to see what it holds, because explosions often leave shrapnel. He takes something out and looks at it in horror. Just as Rory, Amy and the Doctor are about to finally go into the TARDIS and take off to safety, Restac, dying due to exposure to the toxic gas, appears and shoots at the Doctor. Rory pushes him out of the way and takes the blast, dying in Amy's arms, confused because they had seen a future version of themselves across the hill from where they 'parked' the TARDIS in the beginning. The energy from the crack in the wall soon begins to absorb Rory, and the Doctor recalls what he said to Amy in the forest at the 'Byzantium': that if the time energy catches up to you, all evidence of your life is erased, as if you had never been born.

Since the drill is moments away from killing them, the Doctor pries a sobbing Amy away from Rory's lifeless body, locks her in the TARDIS and takes off, watching Rory's body dissipate into the crack. However, Amy implores the Doctor not to let her forget Rory, so he prompts her to clutch onto all the memories of him so that he can live on in her mind. Unlike with the Byzantium and the Weeping Angels, Amy will not remember Rory just because she is a time traveller, as he is part of her own personal history. For a moment, it looks as if Amy remembers. However, the TARDIS jolts, causing Amy to lose her focus, and she is not able to hold onto memories of Rory. The Doctor finds Amy's engagement ring on the floor of the TARDIS.

They arrive at the surface just as the drill explodes. Ambrose thanks the Doctor, since he could have let the Silurians kill her for killing Alaya. The Doctor responds that an eye for an eye is no way to live, and that she should seek some sort of repentance by making sure that her son really is the best humanity can be, in preparation for when the Silurians end their hibernation in a thousand years. Amy and the Doctor return to the TARDIS to leave, and they spot someone across the hill again, except this time, it is only 'future Amy', and no Rory. Amy does remark that for a second she thought she saw someone else as well, but lets go of the thought. On her way back into the TARDIS, Amy makes a remark to the Doctor and uses the term "you boys".

The Doctor lags behind to examine what he pulled from the other side of the crack: a burnt piece of the TARDIS.[edit] Continuity

The events of "Cold Blood" continue the running series arc about by the Cracks in Time, resulting in Rory's deletion from history.

After his "decontamination", the Doctor asks the Silurians whether they have any celery or tomatoes. The Eleventh Doctor expressed similar food cravings early in his regeneration in "The Eleventh Hour", whilst the Fifth Doctor wore celery on his jacket and in The Caves of Androzani claimed it had restorative powers.

It has been five years since Amy Pond
last travelled with the Doctor, and when he lands in her garden again, on the
eve of the birth of her first child, she finds herself facing a
heartbreaking choice – one that will change her life forever. They will
have to choose which is the dream world and which is reality.

Plot

Leadworth, 2015. Amy Pond is stirring some custard in a bowl but
starts to feel pain in her pregnant body. Rory immediately arrives on
his bike (with a pony tail on his head) and Amy screams Rory's name so
he can get inside thinking the baby is coming. Amy's pain then subsides
and both of them are about to resume their daily lives, when the TARDIS
materializes outside their kitchen window. The Doctor exits the TARDIS
whilst Rory and Amy hurry to him and the TARDIS before hugs are
exchanged and the Doctor stating how happy they look five years after
they last travelled with him.

The box under the TARDIS console the Doctor opens has the
words: "TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Build Site:
Gallifrey Blackhole Shipyard. Type 40. Build date: 1963. Authorised for
use by qualified Time Lords only by the Shadow Proclamation. Misuse or
theft of any TARDIS will result in extreme penalties and permanent
exile." written on it.

The sign outside the old peoples' home reads "SARN Residential
Care Home". Sarn
was the setting for DW: Planet of Fire.

This is only the second episode of the series (after Time of
the Angels) not to feature a Crack in time but is the first non 2 part
story to not feature a crack.

Ratings

to be added

Rumours

The 'Dream Lord' was rumoured to pretend to be the Doctor
because of a shot of him inside the TARDIS wearing the Eleventh Doctor's
costume in the trailer. He was, in fact, the Doctor himself - at
least, his dark side.

Aunt Sharon will appear. This was false

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

When Rory and Amy are running from the Eknodine you can clearly
see no mud on his back, but he was thrown on his back, into mud, a
minute before.It concerns a dream, that puts things in
perspective.

Not
every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a
credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required.
The information above is based solely on observations of the actual
end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information
from IMDB or other sources.

According to a pre-launch press pack issued by the BBC, Patrick
Schweitzer was actually the co-producer of this episode, but in the
event, he was actually double credited — as both a full producer
and a line producer.

The relationship between Calvierri and her son and their plan
to convert people to become their species is similar to that of the Family of Blood who shared a close bond and took over
individuals to go unnoticed.

When Calvierri commits suicide she asks The Doctor if he can
carry another dead race on his conscience, and to remember her, much
like Davros did when he died.

Rosanna Calvierri uses a Perception filter. The perception filter is shown to have a
self preservation loophole, making the teeth visible when the brain
detects a threat.

Story Notes

A 90-second clip from this episode was aired during Matt
Smith's appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 26 March
2010.

The Vampires are not real vampires, but are of alien origin.
They are fish-like alien creatures using Perception Filters to hide
themselves to other people.

There was some initial confusion over the title of this story,
with some media sources (as well as Matt
Smith in a TV interview[1]) using the title Vampires in Venice.

In the Series 5 preview, one of the vampires leap for Rory,
without any change. In the actual episode, he changes to his alien form.
Differences like this have happened many times from trailer to episode.

The name of the species, Saturnynians,
isn't spoken in the episode, though the planet Saturnyne
is mentioned twice.

This is the first Doctor Who episode that, instead of having
the last scene cut to the closing titles, the closing titles 'merge'
with the scene. In this case, the camera zooms into the TARDIS keyhole,
and through it, the Time Vortex is visible.

This episode is notable for being filmed in Croatia,
and is therefore the first episode of a Doctor Who universe show to be filmed in a
formerly Communist country.

The Vampires of Venice contains similarities to School Reunion, also written by Toby Whithouse:

Pre-titles sequence involves scene of a young girl being
attacked by an alien, followed by a scene in which the Doctor appears
during a mundane activity and says something rather ordinary.

The companion's boyfriend joins in for the adventure and
becomes part of the TARDIS crew for the following episodes.

Both episodes feature scenes where two of the main characters
discuss the Doctor's effect on relationships.

The leader of the alien race in both episodes proposes an
alliance with the Doctor.

A minor character disposes of most of the aliens by causing an
explosion.

The alien's plan is thwarted by a simple flick of a switch.

Ratings

6.2 million

Filming Locations

Croatia was used as the primary location for the setting of this
episode. It is the third episode of the revival series after DW: The Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Dead to
include major filming outside the UK.

The Doctor discovers a message in Old High Gallifreyan engraved on the side of a ruined flight recorder from the starship Byzantium 12,000 years in the past by Doctor River Song. With Amy Pond, the Doctor takes the TARDIS to meet her before the ship crashes on the planet Alfava Metraxis. After reuniting with the Doctor, whom she has had extensive contact within his relative future, Dr. Song warns the Doctor of a Weeping Angel, creatures that cannot move when observed but otherwise can move incredibly fast, that the Byzantium was carrying, and calls for Father Octavian and his troops to join her on the surface to recapture it. Dr. Song shows the Doctor and Amy a four-second loop of security footage of the Angel as the soldiers set up base camp. The Doctor and Song review a book written by a madman about the Angels which warns that any form of image of the Angels become Angels themselves. Simultaneously, Amy finds, when she looks away, the Angel from the footage moves and begins to emerge from the screen, further trapping her in the viewing room. As the Doctor and Song attempt to free Amy, Amy is able to freeze the image on a loop break, causing the Angel to disappear and saving herself. As the Doctor and Song verify Amy is safe, she continues to believe she has something in her eyes.

To access the Byzantium and locate the Angel, the group must travel through a "Maze of the Dead", a stone labyrinth with numerous statues erected by the planet's natives that the Angel could hide among. The group splits up, with some soldiers left to guard the entrance. As they explore, the Doctor and Song come to realize that the native species of the planet have two heads, while all the statues have one; they quickly realise that every statue is a Weeping Angel, slower and weaker than the captured Angel due to lack of beings to consume over the centuries but now absorbing energy from the crashed ship. As the group tries to escape, Amy believes her hand to have become stone and cannot move, but the Doctor points out that her perception has been influenced by the Angel, and she is still fine, allowing her to flee. The group soon finds that the Angels have killed their rear guard and are using their consciousness to speak to the Doctor. The Angels reveal they have lured the group in the trap, and are planning to use their essences to further regenerate. The Doctor threatens that the Angels should have never put him in the trap, and prepares the group to act once he fires at the globe of light providing the only illumination the maze; the episode ends on this cliffhanger.

The Doctor, Amy, River Song, Father Octavian and his clerics find themselves standing on the nose of the Byzantium, looking down on the surface and the Weeping Angels, after having been caught by the ship's artificial gravity when the gravity globe burst. The group make their way to the secondary flight deck while being chased by the regenerating Angels, who have now also jumped up to the ship. All the while, Amy is counting downwards from ten without realising it. Angel Bob claims that this is a countdown to when they will kill her, after which they will take control of the universe. The Doctor asks the Angels where they can possibly expect to get the power from to take over the universe, but the Angels just laugh at the Doctor's ignorance of the situation. The Doctor turns around and then sees a giant crack in the ship's wall, identical to the one in Amy's bedroom in "The Eleventh Hour", and as seen in "The Beast Below" and "Victory of the Daleks", it is a crack in the universe. While the others escape into the ship's oxygen factory, a giant forest, the Doctor examines the crack, before noticing he is surrounded by Weeping Angels - one of whom catches him by his jacket. He warns the Angels that the crack, whilst full of energy, is not full of the energy they need (time energy); it is instead a crack from the end of the universe, a crack that will consume everyone. While distracting them with this thought, he escapes, minus his coat, and quickly follows after the others.

Just before the Doctor can reach her, Amy collapses to the forest floor, seemingly dying. Recollecting that the image of an Angel is itself an Angel, the Doctor realises that Amy has the image of a Weeping Angel in the visual centres of her mind. The Doctor tells her to close her eyes in order to suppress the visual centres of the brain and explains that if she opens her eyes for more than a second, the Angel will kill her. Before he leaves, Amy confesses to the Doctor she is unsure if she can trust him yet, as he isn't always truthful with her, but the Doctor simply informs her that if he always told her the truth, she would never need to trust him. He implores her to remember what he told her when she was seven, but Amy does not know what he is referring to. The Doctor, River and Father Octavian head off to the main control room in the hope of slowing down the descent of the Angels, while Amy is left alone with the clerics as the Weeping Angels advance. Whilst walking through the forest, the Doctor traces the origins of the crack back to the point in time and space at which it began - June 26th, 201x (the last digit is not revealed until the end of the episode). While trying to break into the control room, an Angel traps Octavian. The Doctor is helpless to save him and Octavian urges him to leave and join River inside. Just before his inevitable death though, Octavian divulges to the Doctor that River is a criminal currently in his custody, guilty of the murder of a man whose identity he will not reveal. The Doctor gives his last apologies to Octavian and hurries inside.

The crack in the secondary flight deck widens into the forest, where Amy is being guarded by four of the clerics. The Angels run away from the crack, in fear from the Doctor's warning, leaving the clerics and Amy behind. The Doctor speculates that the crack is allowing time to be rewritten and River asks him how they can close it. The Doctor explains that the best way to close it is to feed it a complicated space-time event: him. In the forest, three of clerics go to inspect the crack, which just looks like a very bright light but, after they've gone, the remaining cleric doesn't even remember that they existed. He goes to investigate the crack himself, leaving Amy truly alone and with only a communicator. The Doctor radios Amy and tells her to come to the control room. She asks why she should risk confronting the Angels and the Doctor tells her that the Angels can only kill her, but the crack can erase her from time. Reluctantly and still with her eyes closed, she follows his sonic screwdriver signal, until the Angels arrive and surround her. Since the Angels are still very scared, the Doctor informs Amy that if she walks like she can see, the Angels will remain in stone form due to their survival instincts, but Amy soon gives herself away as blind by tripping over and shouting, allowing the Angels (who are seen moving for the first time) to advance in on her. Just in time, River teleports her to the control room.

All the Angels come to the entrance to the room as they drain energy from the doors, which then open. The lead Angel, whom the Doctor has named "Angel Bob" after the man whose voice it was using, demands that the Doctor throw himself into the crack in order to save the Angels. River, as a time traveller, wants to throw herself in but the Doctor laughs at the idea, claiming that she is not even as complicated as one Angel and that only all the Angels are equivalent to him. He then realises that as the ship's power is quickly draining, its artificial gravity field is about to collapse, and he urges his friends to hold on to something to stop themselves from falling. The gravity field then collapses and all of the frozen Angels fall into the crack. This is enough to seal it, erasing them all from existence. The group escapes to the outside of the temple, and Amy is again able to see - the Angel within her mind never existed, due to the fact it fell into the crack. Confused, Amy asks how it is possible she remembers all of the clerics who seemingly "ceased to exist," but the Doctor informs her that, since they are time travellers, and time has no context in which to work, they can remember them. River, who after completing her mission is about to be teleported back to her cell in space, tells the Doctor she will see him again when the Pandorica opens (unnerving the Doctor, who claims the Pandorica is just a fairy tale), and that the man she killed was the best man she'd ever known. She is teleported back to the penal starship, with the remaining soldiers.

Amy tells the Doctor to take her home. There, she tells him that she is getting married in the morning and tries to seduce him (to which he acts alarmed). He declines to reciprocate and, whilst looking at her bedside digital clock, realises that she is at the centre of all the cracks and that the time explosion which created them occurs today - the day of her wedding, June 26th 2010. He quickly whisks her away in order to try to sort the issue out.